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REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

Hy the same author

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REPORT ON THE

RUSSIANS

IV. L. White

Eyre & Spottiswoode

I-ONDON

First Published November ig4§
Second Impression April 1946

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
FOR BYRE & SPOTT18WOODE (PUBUSHERS) LTD.
15 BEDFORD STREET, LONDON, W.C. 2

INTRODUCTION

Tras book is basically the story of a six- weeks trip to Russia which
I took during the summer of 1944 in company with Eric Johnston,
President of the United States Chamber of Commerce, and Joyce
O’Hara, his assistant. They lived at the American Embassy during
our stay in Moscow, while I moved down to the Hotel Metropole
to be nearer the correspondents, most of whom lived there.

Although we travelled together, in fairness to them I wish to make
it clear that the opinions expressed in this book are entirely my own.

Also a word about the Russian people : I liked them very much —
in many ways they are like Americans. Actually, since we are all
descended from Adam there is no such thing as a “young” nation;
but they have a fresh and unspoiled outlook which is close to our
own. They entertained us lavishly, but there was nothing sinister in
this and I never felt it was intended to influence anything we wrote
or said after we got back.

Finally I wish to thank the Reader* s Digest for publishing an ex-
cellent condensation of this book. There are probably errors ; I have
corrected several since the Digest appeared. Some of these mistakes
were favourable to the Russians; some were unfavourable, and these
last of course I regret.

W. L. WHITE

January i, 1945

ONE

The Soviet vice-consul spoke creaky, schoolbook English, but he
was an agreeable young man. He was helping me fill out my visa
application. His office was pkasant and airy, but I was uneasy.
Maybe because the office of the consul, upstairs, had double doors.
Not the kind you find in free countries. The kind with which,
when you open one door, you are left staring at still another closed
door, about six inches in front of your nose. If the knob of the
first door is on your right, the knob of the second is on the left.
So no one could possibly listen through both keyholes at once.
Fumbling through them, and after carefully closing both, you
feel dazed, like a rat emerging from a Yale University maze.

I was uneasy not because I had something to conceal, but some-
thing to proclaim. Because I had been with the Finnish army in the
winter war of 1939-40, which was bad news in connection with
a Soviet visa. Now, of course, they knew I had been in Finland,
but I wanted them to know I knew they knew it. So when I was
told the Soviet consul would be pleased to see me, and after I had
negotiated the consul’s two whisper-proof doors, I began trying to
work in my Finnish trip. The consul was an urbane, stocky little
diplomat. It soon became clear that he was on a fishing trip for
information. There is nothing sinister about this, for it is the avowed
business of all diplomats, including our own, to report to their
home governments on the state of the nation to which they are
accredited. I had undergone, in 1940, a somewhat similar seance
with the equally suave German consul in Copenhagen, when I was
applying for a re-entry visa to Germany. Before it was refused me,
the consul pumped me of all kinds of information on the state of
affairsTn Finland, from which I had just come. I knew he was
doing it, and yet, because he was a pleasant diplomat and because
he wielded the stomach pump with a skilful hand, I submitted
gracefully to the operation, yielding to him freely all information
about the Finnish situation which I was sure he already knew,
and pretending an inscrutable ignorance on any matter which his
government might pass on to their allies the Russians. The Russo-
German pact was then only a few months old, and the totalitarian
alliance in its honeymoon phase.

There was no need, however, in 1944, to withhold anything from
this consul, as his questions did not concern military matters but
were all in the sphere of politics. For instance, how was Mr.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

Roosevelt’s health? There had been some dark stories that it
was failing. When I had been in Washington last week it had been
fine, I said, and these were only the usual rumours.

And who would the Republicans nominate? And if probably
Mr. Dewey, who did I think would be elected ? But if it were Mr.
Dewey, what kind of president did I think he would make ? All of
which I answered freely and then, explaining that I was applying
for a Soviet visa, gave him a shoit biographical sketch, including
the fact that I had covered the Finnish war for the American press
and radio, a fact that he did not appear to hear for, ignoring it, he
fell to reminiscing. He also had been in Europe in that winter of
1939-1940, as Soviet consul in a great North German seaport. And
although the pact was ostensibly in effect he had been practically
a prisoner in his consulate, cut off by the Germans from all contact
with the people. Twice more, as we compared impressions of the
Prussians, I managed a reference to my Finnish interlude; each
time he apparently did not hear.

Just brfore I left the consul switched the conversation from
politics to literature. I wished to go to the Soviet Union as assistant
to Mr. Eric Johnston, but I was also connected with the Reader^ s
Digest? Yes, I said, I was one of its editors. And perhaps I also
knew Mr. Eugene Lyons? Here I thought the affable face of the
consul darkened slightly, for Gene Lyons is hardly counted as one
of the Soviet Union’s fervent admirers.

Yes, I said, I knew Mr. Lyons quite well. And what, exactly, was
the connection between Mr. Lyons and the Reader* s Digest? There
was none, I could answer truthfully.

This seemed to exhaust literature and since the conversation now
paused, I bowed myself out of the whisper-proof double doors and
back to where Mr. Vavilov was waiting with the questionnaire.

It began with a large blank space for a brief autobiography, into
which I inserted the fact that I had been with the Finnish army in
1939, a fact that Mr. Vavilov, reading at my shoulder, seemed again
not to notice.

It continued with other questions, obviously designed for White
Russians, about political affiliations. To what party did I belong?
Of what other political parties had I previously been a member?
When and why — giving dates and spc^c reasons — ^had I in each
case changed my allegiance? I showed some dismay at all this,
and Mr. Vavilov, smiling reassuringly, said there was no need, in
my case, for detailed answers.

But at the end was a most curious question: I had hastily written
in its blank, but then I hesitated. Had I, they wanted to know,
ever been associated with the armed forces of any government in

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

opposition to the Soviet Union? Archly, I appealed to Mr. Vavilov.
I explained — ^this time dearly so there could be no misunderstanding
— ^that in 1939 1 had been associated as a reporter with the armies of
the Finnish Republic during its earlier war with Russia. So perhaps
my answer should be yes ?

Smiling broadly now, Mr. Vavilov shook his head.

“The proper answer there, Mr. White, as you have already
written, is ‘no.* Because, in Finland in 1939, we understand that
your opposition to the Soviet Union was purely verbal.”

My visa came a week later.

All this had come about as the result of an impulsive letter I had
written a few weeks before. Reading that Joseph Stalin had issued
a special invitation to visit Russia to Eric Johnston, president of the
United States Chamber of Commerce, I had sat down at my type-
writer to tell Johnston I would like to go along.

Eric Johnston was to me a complete stranger, except that I had
read a good deal of what he had written and liked most of it very
much. He “believed in” this country; which is to say that he had
been an eloquent voice preaching optimism and courage for the
postwar period; a voice clearly saying that never again must we
allow American business and industry to stagnate into a depression,
but must continue to produce for peacetime needs and luxuries at
almost wartime velocity: there would be free markets for every-
thing if there were free jobs for all, and vice versa.

He seemed, in addition, to be a completely uninhibited extrovert,
and in his so far brief career on the national scene, had approached
its august and forbidding figures with friendly curiosity. He had
opened his career as president of the National Chamber by calling
at the White House — a precedent-breaking step, as American busi-
ness had not hitherto accorded the New Deal official recognition.
He had even sat down across a conference table from John L.
Lewis.

For he had a theory, as simple as Columbus’s egg trick, that before
you begin to denounce an opponent, you should first go over with
him the points on which you agree; you will both be surprised,
Johnston points out, at how many of these there are and often the
fight can be fairly compromised.

In somewhat this fi-ame of mind he was approaching the Soviet
Union; I wanted to go there for the very obvious reason that Russia
is clearly the biggest and most unpredictable factor with which
Ajnerica must deal in the next few decades.

About a week after my imptilsive letter I met Eric Johnston
across his desk in Washington. The first thing you see is that Eric
Johnston is handsome. At forty-seven he has all of his white even

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

Roosevelt’s health? There had been some dark stories that it
was failing. When I had been in Washington last week it had been
fine, I said, and these were only the usual rumours.

And who would the Republicans nominate? And if probably
Mr. Dewey, who did I think would be elected? But if it were Mr.
Dewey, what kind of president did I think he would make? All of
which I answered freely and then, explaining that I was applying
for a Soviet visa, gave him a shoit biograplucal sketch, inclu^ng
the fact that I hjid covered the Finnish war for the American press
and radio, a fact that he did not appear to hear for, ignoring it, he
fell to reminiscing. He also had been in Europe in that winter of
1939-1940, as Soviet consul in a great North German seaport. And
although the pact was ostensibly in effect he had been practically
a prisoner in his consulate, cut off by the Germans from all contact
with the people. Twice more, as we compared impressions of the
Prussians, I managed a reference to my Finnish interlude; each
time he apparently did not hear.

Just before I left the consul switched the conversation from
politics to literature. I wished to go to the Soviet Union as assistant
to Mr. Eric Johnston, but I was also connected with the Reader's
Digest ? Yes, I said, I was one of its editors. And perhaps I also
knew Mr. Eugene Lyons ? Here I thought the affable face of the
consul darkened slightly, for Gene Lyons is hardly counted as one
of the Soviet Union’s fervent admirers.

Yes, I said, I knew Mr. Lyons quite well. And what, exactly, was
the connection between Mr. Lyons and the Reader's Digest? There
was none, I could answer truthfully.

This seemed to exhaust literature and since the conversation now
paused, I bowed myself out of the whisper-proof double doors and
back to where Mr. Vavilov was waiting with the questionnaire.

It continued with other questions, obviously designed for White
Russians, about political affiliations. To what party did I belong?
Of what other political parties had I previously been a member?
When and why — giving dates and specific reasons — ^had I in each
case changed my allegiance? I showed some dismay at all this,
and Mr. Vavilov, smiling reassuringly, said there was no need, in
my case, for detailed answers.

But at the end was a most curious question: I had hastily written
^*no” in its blank, but then I hesitated. Had I, they wanted to know,
ever been associated with the armed forces of any government in

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

opposition to the Soviet Union ? Archly, I appealed to Mr. Vavilov.
I explained — ^this time clearly so there could be no misunderstanding
— ^that in 1939 1 had been associated as a reporter with the armies of
the Finnish Republic during its earlier war with Russia. So perhaps
my answer should be yes?

Smiling broadly now, Mr. Vavilov shook his head.

“The proper answer there, Mr. White, as you have already
written, is ‘no.’ Because, in Finland in 1939, we understand that
your opposition to the Soviet Union was purely verbal.”

My visa came a week later.

In somewhat this frame of mind he was approaching the Soviet
Union; I wanted to go there for the very obvious reason that Russia
is clearly the biggest and most unpredictable factor with which
America must deal in the next few decades.

About a week after my impulsive letter I met Eric Johnston
across his desk in Washin^on. The first thing you see is that Eric
Johnston is handsome. At forty-seven he has all of his white even

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

teeth, all of his wavy brown hair, and a clear, ruddy skin, and blue
eyes. He had a longish, sensitive face and a Hollywo^ profile.
Together, these make him unusually and conspicuously handsome
and the fact that people turn to look at him when he walks down a
street is as much beyond his control as though he were hunch-
backed or had six fingers on each hand. It is the kind of striking
male beauty which could easily become a handicap because it tends
to annoy almost every other male. He counteracts this with a quick
and completely disarming smile. I am sure he has done this for so
long that he has forgotten just how and when he first discovered
it was necessary.

Taken alone they might have made for him a successful career
as an actor, were it not for his brain, which, considered as an
organ, is uncommonly good. It starts with a phenomenal memory.
He never forgets anything he thinks he will ever need, and his
judgment on this point is good. He can read over three times the
text of a twenty-minute speech, and then repeat it word for word.
Or he can give you the year the Emperor Maximilian entered
Mexico. It no more requires effort on his part than does his profile.

It is unfortunate that the word “opportunist** should have be-
come a term of abuse, with the implication that one should be
praised for daydreaming while chances go by. In any case, Eric
Johnston is as constantly aware of the world around him as is a
fox terrier who pricks up his ears at every creaking board. Walking
down streets, he automatically locates corners for cigar stores. A
crowd of idle, ragged Arabs becomes a potential labour supply and
at the same time a potential consumer demand.

He is healthily competitive; he wants something like almost any-
thing you have, or if possible, one just a little better. But he takes
disappointments well. When I first met him he was being mentioned
for the presidency; he had a small but definite chance. He watched
it carefully, never overestimated or underestimated his boom. When
it faltered, he pronounced it dead and instantly forgot it. This is
mental health amounting almost to abnormality. Mention for the
presidency is usually a catastrophe which requires years of painful
convalescence. Eric Johnston was up, about, and interested in the
outside world in a matter of minutes.

However, what with his keen mind he usually gets rather easily
what he wants. Then he is able to think sympathetically about what
other people need and is as eager to help them get it as though
it were something for himself.

It wasn’t just Eric Johnston going to Russia; he was American
business appraising the whole Soviet show : and all of what we saw
there should be available to any American who shared our curiosity.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS II

I was pleased when he told me that, because he wanted to feel free
to write and say what he thought on our return, he was insisting
to the Russians that we pay our expenses wherever possible. He was
taking along money for that purpose, and suggest^ that 1 do like*
wise.

The other member of our party was Joyce O’Hara, Johnston’s
regular assistant in the Chamber of Commerce. He is a blue-eyed
Irishman of fifty with regular features which, anywhere outside the
radius of Johnston’s dazzling profile, would be considered uncom-
monly handsome. Not too many years ago he exchanged a successful
newspaper job for a career in the public relations division of the
Chamber of Commerce in Washington.

Joyce and I were thrown together constantly from the beginning
of the trip. The protocol of our entire voyage was that if the hotel
or guesthouse boasted an Imperial Bridal Suite complete with sitting
room, sitz bath, and breakfast nook, it would always be assigned
to Johnston in solitary grandeur, in his capacity as President of the
Chamber of Commerce, while Joyce and I would share twin beds
in the second-best room. For a few days we watched each other
shave and listened to each other snore with considerable reserve
and some suspicion. He told me later that he suspected I was going
to be a wild and unpredictable male Carrie Nation, who would make
trouble during the whole trip. At the outset I could sec him only
as an unnecessarily vivid character escaped from the pages of
Sinclair Lewis.

Only slowly and after days of appraisal did we get down to a
solid basis of friendly jibes at each other’s weak spots, and he gave
as good as he got. We ended up warm friends.

It developed that O’Hara’s pet phobia was bacteria in any form,
but this was only gradually revealed. We departed from Washing-
ton and our plane stopped for a meal in the Azores where we were
met by staff officers of the American base and picked up sketchy
information about these Portuguese islands. It seemed the British
also have bases there and for a while there was ill-feeling because of
differences in rates of pay. American soldiers get the most, the
British considerably less, and the local Portuguese least of all. The
American commandant sensibly eased the situation by permitting
no soldier to cash more than $30 a month for spending money.
But some disparity still existed and the local Portuguese girls, who
have a keen sense of justice, had further eased it by charging Ameri-
cans 80 milreis. His Majesty’s troops 40, and the local Portuguese
garrison 20.

The only entertainment, we were told, was the weekly bull fight,
and here Portugfuese customs differ from those of Spain.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

The bull’s horns arc encased in leather and at the fight’s end he is
never killed. Instead his wounds are sprinkled with sulfa, sewed up,
and he is thriftily saved for another day. These fights are attend^
cn masse by the American G.L’s, who cheer wildly for the bull.

Before breakfast at this base we washed up and shaved in an
army tent. It was steaming hot and the staff captain suggested a
shower bath in the next tent. Johnston followed him out.

“Whcrc’d they go?” demanded Joyce. His cars and eyes had
been full of lather.

“Out to get a shower.”

“Hey, don’t let him do that — ^go and stop him !”

“Why?”

Joyce looked around. We were alone. He leaned toward me.
“Athlete’s foot,” he said in an ominous whisper. “Tell him not to
bring it back — we’ll all get it.”

. Yet Johnston somehow escaped this peril, only to fall victim to
an infected sinus at Casablanca. We were all impatient to push on
toward Russia, yet ahead of us lay high altitude flying which might
spread the infection and lay him up for weeks, so we must wait
until it healed.

We waited in considerable luxury in a spacious villa, once the
property of Jean Maas, who formerly owned a string of collabora-
tionist newspapers and was known in the French- African colonies
as the Hcarst of North Africa. His San Simeon, which the Allied
armies confiscated, is a beautiful blending of French Modem and
Arabic. This spacious mass of elaborate bathrooms and penthouse
terraces wanders down a hillside to trail off in a maze of tennis
courts, gardens, and swimming pools. The Allied command were
using it as an overnight hotel for high officers and distinguished
guests, as we seem to be classified.

“Captain,” demanded Joyce earnestly, “do you drink the water
here?”

“ Most people don’t like the local beer. But I could get you some
wine — ”

“I mean can you drink the water — ^is it all right?”

“ Oh, but the army runs Casablanca. We’ve been here since 1 943.
First thing they do is test the water.”

“Oh. Well, how about mosquitoes?”

“ We’re too high up the hill to get many.”

“ Much malaria around here?”

“Some on the other side of the desert — about 700 miles away.”

“Much in Casablanca?”

“Oh, none in Casablanca. Didn’t you read that sign at the air-
port?”

k£t»ORT ON THE RUSSIANS

“Just wanted to be sure. But you do have mosquitoes?”

“A few. Would you like a screened room?”

“Think we’d better.”

Later we were taken through the old Arab city by the lieutenant
in charge of American M.P.’s and finally the base hospital, a good
distance out in the desert on the opposite side of the city. It was
beautifully equipped, but we were far from the battle zone. The
most interesting patient was a case of camel-bite.

“That screened tent over there,” said Colonel Tinsman, who was
showing us around, “is the malaria ward.”

“They told us there wasn’t any in Casablanca !” said Joyce, in-
dignantly.

“There isn’t. These three were brought in from way down the
coast.”

“Oh.” But his voice still carried a note of triumph.

It was about three in the morning. I had heard muffled thumps,
sounds of a struggle, but I had been sleeping soundly and woke
slowly. The servants at the Villa Maas were Italian prisoners of
war, yet they seemed most respectful, even timid.

“Bill!”

The light was on. I opened my eyes. Joyce, clad in billowing
B.V.D.’s down to his wrists and ankles and sagging at the crotch,
was standing motionless in the middle of the room brandishing
what seemed to be a club.

“ Wazzamatter?”

“Be quiet I ” said Joyce in a tense whisper. “There’s one in here.”

The villa was very still. Outside not even a breeze rustled.

“I don’t hear anything.”

“ I heard him. Woke me up. Listen ! Flying around somewhere.”

Joyce seemed to be staring fixedly at a corner next the door.
The poised club turned out to be a folded copy of Collier's, It
occurred to me that Joyce was having a stroke, and his enemy was
the Angel of Death.

“It’ll be all right,” I said very evenly and quietly.

“Hell it will. Damn thing was buzzing right over my ear. Prob-
ably got in through that screen. There’s always holes in ’em.”
Collier's poised, he had been slowly turning. Suddenly he froze.
“There!” he hissed, and began gliding toward one wall. In its
centre was a tiny black spot. He let drive at this with Collier's. The
spot was unchanged.

“Damn fly speck,” he said disgustedly. “Where’s my glasses?”

“Look, Joyce. Suppose there is a mosquito. There’s no malaria in
Casablanca.”

14 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

“Three cases. Out at that hospital.’*

“All screened.”

“Always have holes. How’d this mosquito get in here, if there
wasn’t always holes?”

“All right, now look. There might be one hole out there. But
the mosquito’s got to find it. Then he’s got to bite a patient. Then
he’s got to find the same hole again to get out.”

“Well, he could.”

“And then, I suppose, without pausing, he pivots and flies over
five miles of desert to Casablanca. And then you think he’d fly right
over the bare backsides of 200,000 Arabs without pausing, just to
get to the Villa Maas. And then, I suppose, he finds a hole in this
particular scseen, out of all the other screens on the house. And
then, I suppose, he flies right over me, here by the window, in
order to get to you. And then — ”

“Here they are,” said Joyce, picking up his glasses. “Now we’ll
see about this.”

“Let me know how it comes out.” I lay back on the pillow.

A quarter of an hour later there was a loud pop.

“Got him!” said Joyce, triumphantly. I raised up. He was
advancing toward me, holding out Collier^s. On its margin was a
brownish smear. The Angel of Death.

“Blood,” he said darkly, looking at me sternly and pointing to
the smear.

“We can telephone Tinsman. He could come over and heat a
needle and cauterize us.”

Joyce pondered this. But then he glanced suspiciously at me and
managed an unsteady grin.

“Oh, well,” he said, and lumbered back to bed. He switched out
the light. But presently I heard him stir. “One of us was bit,
though; no doubt about that,” he said grimly.

At Cairo a competent American nose and throat man peered into
Johnston’s ear and instantly forbade us to fly over the 16,000 foot
pass between Iran and the Soviet Union, which meant a few days’
delay. Anyway we would get a good look at ancient Cairo, which
none of us had ever seen.

“And they say we can stay right here in the barracks at this
airfield,” said Joyce. “Good American food and water.”

“But if we stay in town, we can really see Cairo,” I argued. I
wanted to avoid the boredom of three square G.I. meals a day in
a desert mess hall. “At least we won’t have all those com flakes and
hard pork chops and overcooked vegetables and powdered eggs.”

“ I’d just as soon stay here,” said Joyce. “At least we’ll know what

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 1 5

weVc eating. Maybe it’s not the Statler but it’s good American
food.”

“You’re not going to get cat at Shepheard’s. It’s one of the best
hotels in the world.”

“How’ll we know about the water?”

“This has been a military base for years. The army tests it.”

“Yes, but what army?”

“The British. But probably we test it, too.”

“ We don’t know that, though.”

A stalemate; we both look^ at Johnston. He never hesitates at
decisions.

“I’ve never seen Cairo,” he said. “I think we could try the hotel.
Think we ought to see Cairo.”

Shephezird’s was full, so we stayed at its annex, the Continental,
identical in every way, almost as large and just down the street.
Yet it definitely was not a Statler. It had high tropical ceilings, dark,
carved woodwork from the 1890’s and the servants were raven-
eyed Arabs in red fezzes, flowing white gowns, and noiseless
slippers.

Our rooms were huge with spreading white marble washbasins
and enormous brass beds, over which flowed mosquito bars. Joyce
frowned at our room with measured approval. But then he got out
his prized possession, the anti-mosquito bomb presented him by
Colonel Tinsman just before we left Casablanca — a sinister black
metal container about the size of a croquet ball with a nozzle which
releases the compressed gas. A few puffs of it is supposed to rid
any room of mosquitoes; it rids it even more rapidly of people.
In Cairo it is hot almost to suffocation. Closing tightly the two tall
French doors which lead out onto the tiny balcony, Joyce gets out
his anti-insect bomb and, while I stand speechless, sprays our room
with this noxious gas until the air is gray.

“Now,” he says, slipping it back into his bag, “We’d better get
down to dinner.”

Still I have a little hope. Maybe when the Soviet border guards
see this gadget, he won’t be able to convince them his bomb is
entirely non-political.

Waiting for Johnston’s ear to heal before we tackle Teheran
pass, we fly up for half a day in Jerusalem, and on the return trip
find the pilot of our plane has very sensibly filled its extra seats
with about twenty soldiers on leave who have been waiting pas-
sage to Cairo. Americans, British, and colonials, officers and men —
and two pretty English girls in ATS uniform.

We buckle our safety belts for the take-off. The rest of the plane

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

is shyly eyeing the civilian clothes. The Cairo airport has provided
a carton of sturdy G.I. sandwiches — more than three of us can eat.
So Eric takes charge. He leans forward in his safety belt as we bump
down the runway.

*‘Hcrc, boys, want a sandwich? — Catch !’* Without waiting for
an answer he begins pitching cheese sandwiches, oranges, and hard-
boiled eggs down the plane’s corridor.

Baseball-trained Americans automatically put up their hands to
anything whizzing through the air; soon a dozen are munching.
But the British boys sit shyly in bewildered embarrassment.

At the airport they give me an army car to take me to my Cairo
hotel and, discovering that the two English girls also want trans-
portation to the Cairo Y.W.C.A., I offer them a ride.

They explain that they drive army lorries and their base is a tiny
desert station on the Suez canal — about 150 girls. They get two
weeks* leave a year. The plump sergeant is twenty-six and a robust
cockney from east London. The slender private is prettier and finer-
grained. She comes from Yorkshire, is twenty-one and left college
to drive trucks in the Egyptian desert eighteen months ago. The
sergeant has been out two years. Neither, of course, has been home
since. Part of their company of girl truckdrivers is also from Eng-
land, but they have Greeks from Cyprus and also girls from Pales-
tine. The Palestinians, they say, are inclined to give themselves airs.
Most of them are German refugees and the sergeant says that they
like to boast, and not too quietly, that they know more about
English literature than do the English girls.

The Greek girls, they say, are at first inclined to be wild. They
join up mostly because they are held down so tightly by their
families at home, and want to see a bit of the world, but when
they get freedom they can’t handle themselves.

“ It’s our men they go for, too,” said the private, gloomily. “Never
their own.”

“Cawn’t say as we blime them,” said the sergeant, “when you
see what theirs arc like.”

Then they fell to talking about us. “We knew you were veddy
important Amcddicans with your own plane,” they said, “so when
you got aboard we tried to decide which of you was the important
one.”

“I say,” said the sergeant, “you Amcddicans do get on quickly,
don’t you? We English have to know people for quite a while, but
you Amcddicans get on at once.”

“And do you remember when the handsome one started throwing
the food ; we’d hardly got in the air ! ” ^

“It fair took our breath,” said the sergeant, “throwing food at

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chaps you ’aven’t met. All the other Ameddicans knew what to do,
though. They caught it and b^an eating. We never saw anything
like it.*’

“And did you notice that little English leflenant sitting down at
the end of the plane ? ” said the pretty private. “ He was very hungry
but very bashful, t and didn’t know if it would be all right if he
caught some or not. All the Ameddicans were picking it out of the
air as your chap chucked it, but the English leftenant just sat there,
holding up his hands shyly. Finally your handsome chap noticed it
and threw him an egg. It was all so vcddy like the Am^dicans we
see in the music halls back home. We didn’t really know all Ameddi-
cans were like that.”

“Were you at the Mena Conference?” asked the sergeant.

I said I wasn’t.

“We first met Ameddicans there,” said the pretty private. “We
were driving staff cars. There were some veddy important Ameddi-
cans at Mena. And some of them were odd — at least, quite different
from us.”

“What did they throw?”

“Nothing. They were veddy important Ameddicans, but they
didn’t throw anything.”

“They worried about the water,” said the sergeant. “All of them
’ad to *ave special water. They were veddy important.”

“And do you have little bottles?” asked the pretty private.
“Each of them had dozens of little bottles, and they were always
swallowing pills and nibbling medicines out of them.”

I thought of Joyce who had in his grips, carefully wrapped in
extra suits of underwear, antidotes for everything from snake bite
to suffocation.

“’Ad to ’ave their own ice,” said the sergeant gloomily.
“ Wouldn’t trust our British ice.”

“But they were veddy important Ameddicans,” said the pretty
private resignedly.

The next morning Eric, Joyce, and I continue our trip, and that
afternoon at Teheran we see our first Russians. Their planes with
the big red stars are on the field as we circle, and as we get out of
our plane, the Russian Ambassador to Iran and half a dozen of his
staff are there to welcome Eric Johnston. They are very solemn
and do not smile as they shake hands. I suddenly remember that
neither do Prussians; jump to the conclusion that there is little un-
necessary smiling east of the Oder.

These solemn Russiamdiplomats are all in their thirties or early
forties, and they wear ciuious, badly cut Soviet suits — sombre in

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

hue and of shoddy materials. You could take an American mail-
order suit, boil it, press it lightly, and get the same effect.

Standing there in these single-breasted Sears, Roebuck models,
they gravely ask us if we had a pleasant trip, soberly welcome us to
Iran and solemnly wish us a pleasant trip through the Soviet Union.

The next morning Averell Harriman, American Ambassador to
the Soviet Union, who has just arrived in Teheran, is taking us to
Moscow in the official ambassadorial Liberator. Averell Harriman
is one of the few ambassadors who actually looks like one. He is
rich, tall, dark, handsome, pleasant-voiced and unimpulsive. His
daughter, who is with him, is also all of these things.

As his official hostess in Moscow, she meets rather more than her
share of important people and so is able to remain calm in the pres-
ence of the National Chamber of Commerce. After greeting us

E leasantly in the plane, she returns to her novel. Immediately we
egin to fight for altitude for the mountains are just ahead. Harri-
man as host and Johnston as the most honoured guest dutifully chat
in the best pair of seats. I look from my window. We are approach-
ing a jagged divide. Snow gleams up at us from granite crevices.

Since the Liberator, unlike the Fortress, is a high-wing plane,
and gas from a wing-tank leak might trickle down into the cabin, no
smoking is allowed except up in the crew’s compartments, which
arc forward of the wing. I presently stroll up here for a cigarette
and chat with the crew. The American navigator and radioman
stand idle, for at their tables sit two stony-faced Red Air Force
men, wearing pistol belts from which hang forty-five’s.

The American radioman notices my stare and grins.

“Never without ’em,’’ he says. “Bet they wear ’em on their night
shirts.’’

“How do you get along with them?”

“Okay. They don’t speak any English. Far as we know they
don’t. They’re strictly business aboard here.”

I nod toward the Russian working at the navigator’s table. “Does
he know his business?”

“Seems to. Of course, our navigator checks everything he does.”
“How do you boys like Russia?”

The boy grins. “Russia? Better let Ted tell you. We’re in and
out a good deal; Ted’s there regular. He’s just riding up with us
now as a passenger back from Teheran. Oh, Ted !”

A master sergeant raises up from a bunk. “ Yuh?”

“This guy wants to know how we like Russia.”

The master sergeant sits up, “Want me to tell him?”

“Shoot.”

“It’s a hell of a place. Every time you get a girl in Moscow, she

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS I9

disappears. That is, unless she’s working for the NKVD* herself.”

“Where does she go?”

“That’s what you want to know. And if you go round to ask
her family, that’s what they want to know.”

A red-headed boy had joined the group. “It gets so,” he said,
“that if you really like some babe, you don’t want to go out with
her, for her own sake. Because she doesn’t know what will happen,
but you do.”

Back in the cabin, my friends are peering keenly out of the
window, onto the dense green of the lower slopes of the foothills.
“Look, Bill ! What an opportunity for dams !”

Now we cross the lead-blue Caspian sea and are presently flying
above the shore line of Baku, dotted with oil wells. Leaving Baku,
we strike off northward and I am fascinated by the villages. In
Persia they had been round with streets in rings and roads radiat-
ing out from the central mosque. But these Slav settlements tend
to be rectangular or square like American towns. The smallest of
them is a double row of houses on either side of one long dirt road —
from the air they might be American crossroads towns of the
’eighties or ’nineties, except that the roofs are thatched.

Most fascinating of all is a fact which I knew but not until now
could believe: that in Russia there are few connected paved high-
ways. I see wagon trails from the villages out to the fields, and
sometimes faint ones from town to town, but not one strip of clean,
flowing concrete or black-top.

Also I’m trying, through this plexiglass window, to see the socialist
revolution as it has affected the villages, but I can’t. For all this
might have been here in the middle ages. If new thatched-roof huts
have been built since czarist days, from 5,000 feet I can’t tell them
fi*om the ancient ones. Looking down on every village, the biggest
building is still the white church, built in czarist days. In twenty-five
years the Soviets have constructed nothing half as big, although here
and there is what might be a school or an administrative ball.

What have the farmers got out of socialism in this quarter cen-
tury of backbreaking work and bloodshed? Undoubtedly more
education and better clothes, to which my friend Maurice Hindus
is an eloquent and accurate witness — but nothing I can see from a
mile in the air.

There are no isolated farms, but sometimes a dozen villages are
in sight at once. The pattern : that single mud street with thatched
houses on each side and a big White church in the centre; behind
each house a little strip of private garden; beyond this a vast ex-
panse of land which is the communal farm. In one village the

* The Soviet secret police — formerly the GPU.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

churchy instead of being in its centre, stands on top of a little hill
a hundred yards away. But the path is heavily overgrown with
weeds.

Now we fly over a manufacturing town. White buildings with
red roofs — they tell- me it is typical of southern Russia. The church
still looms above all.

I read a magazine, glancing out now and then to see if the pic-
ture changes (it docs not), until the co-pilot comes back to say
we will swing low over Stalingrad. Diving, we follow the bends of
the city itself as it follows the river — or rather, as once did the city.
For Stalingrad is gone, and there remain only roofless walls like
the snags of decayed molars staring up at us. Factories, with twLsted
machinery rusting under the tangle of roof girders. Shattered
workers* apartments, like the smashed comb of a deserted beehive. It
is, of course, hideous. But I have become used to ruins, starting with
the blitz over London in 1940. If you coiled Stalingrad up and set
it down in the ruins of London, there would still be plenty of room'
for Stalingrad to rattle around.

Leaving Stalingrad, we climb for altitude and I divide my time
between my magazine and the window. But the picture repeats.
Wagon tracks connecting the tiny villages, with their onion-spired
Byzantine churches.

Finally, just out of Moscow we sec an electric power line running
from horizon to horizon. It is the first thing I have seen in the past
hour that I am sure was built since 1917. But soon we see the first
hard-surfaced road, and that black smudge on the horizon is Mos-
cow itself. Then its railway yards and the smoke from its factories.
Tiers of workers’ apartments surround each factory and arc in
turn surrounded by a crazy quilt of potato patches. A spacious
outdoor theatre is on the river banks. The roofe of the big buildings
arc mottled with brown and green camouflage paint.

Spiralling down we get a closer look at the railway yards. The
Germans have done a neat job here, spotting craters where craters
should be, and scattering few wild bombs. As we let our wheels
down and begin to feel for the runway, I see, rushing past, great
rows of American-built C-47’s stacked on the field in orderly rows
with the big star of the Red Air Force painted on each.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

TWO

A CONSIDERABLE crowd is Waiting at the airdrome. First, the
welcoming committee; a row of solemn Slavs in the same boiled
mail-order suits we saw at Teheran. But the minute Eric Johnston
emerges, a battery of lenses — movie cameras and Soviet copies of
Leicas and Graflexes — close in on his profile. This over, we smil-
ingly shake hands with the unsmiling Russians and work our way
through to the American reporters on the outskirts. Practically all
of Moscow’s tiny foreign newspaper colony is there to cover us,
and they tell us that the Russians have given us an unusually big
official turnout — “better than Donald Nelson’s.”

A big Russian in his middle thirties wanders toward me. “Is
everything all right?” he wants to know. “I am Kirilov, in charge
of protocol for the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Trade.” Then
he added a little anxiously, “I hope everything is as it should be.”
We did not then know that, representing this Foreign Trade Com-
missariat which was our official host, he was to be our constant com-
panion or that he had been selected for the difficult task of catering
to the whims of visiting American dignitaries because in the early
thirties he had been sent by his government to complete his technical
education at the Colorado School of Mines in the small mountain
town of Golden, and so knew both the English language and the
American ways.

For this task his greatest asset was to be his imperturbability. He
is large, plump, pale, with dark hair and sleepy, hazel eyes. I am
sure that many of the things we did irritated or shocked or embar-
rassed him, yet he always stared at us with the solemnity of a frog
lost in reveries, unruffled as a pail of cold lard.

But we now foresee none of this and after only a casual look at
Kirilov are whisked away in American army cars to Spaso House,
where Eric Johnston is scheduled to give an interview to the Anglo-
American Press.

We get a quick first look at Moscow. Wide, incredibly empty
streets, sidewalks full of hurrying, shabby people, walking past
dingy shops in dilapidated buildings. Monotonous rows of unin-
teresting apartments, concrete beehives which sometimes make an
effort at beauty in ornamentation. But it is half-hearted, like the
architecture of an institution.

Now we come to Spaso House which, before the 1917 Revolu-
tion, was built by a beet-sugar baron, and is one of a number of
such palaces in Moscow which once belonged either to merchant

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

princes or the Romanov nobility. The Bolsheviks have turned them
over to foreign governments for embassies. Inside, all are giant
forests of marble columns from the tops of which, like grapevines,
trail the marble balustrades of staircases. They are as draughty as
movie sets, and as cozy to live in as Grand Central Station. Out in the
back yard of each is a hen house and if, at a diplomatic reception,
you see Averell Harriman in the centre of a ^khara rug in this
great hall earnestly talking with Sir Archibald Clark Kerr, you can
be sure that they are discussing not the Curzon Line or the Future
of Estonia, but comparing notes on laying mixtures.

It was in one such august hall, its spaciousness lightly salted down
with curved gilt furniture, that Eric Johnston held his first press
conference, from the central master chair.

He’s delighted to be here, expects to stay about a month. No,
just here as a private citizen, a businessman who will discuss Soviet-
American trade in the postwar period. Stalin ? He had a verbal in-
vitation to visit him from the Russian Ambassador in Washington.
He won’t discuss politics; he’s not a politician but a production man.
He believes we must have an expanding economy in the postwar
world — greater exchange of goods and services between countries,
which will bring a higher living standard. As a production man, he’s
interested in the Soviet Union’s prospects for expanding production.

“Will any special organization be needed to carry on postwar
Soviet- American trade?’* the press asks.

“I don’t know. I’m here to discuss this.”

Will long-term loans be necessary?

They should be favourably considered. And on this, as on all other
matters, he has come to Russia with an open mind.

Is he in Russia to lay the basis for organizing all this ?

He’s not here to sign contracts, hasn’t discussed Russian trade
with any particular American firms.

Will postwar trade be an American state monopoly ?

Very firmly it won’t be.

But is it possible for private business to deal with the Soviet
Union?

The smaller firms can organize themselves into sizeable blocs.

“But if you’re dealing with a monopoly,” asks the Reuter’s cor-
respondent, “don’t you need a monopoly to deal with it?”

Johnston smiles. From the English point of view, yes; from the
American, no.

Aren’t there forces in America against an expanding economy?

There are always forces which don’t see opportunities, which
think the world is already built* But in America, still greater forces
sec there is much to be done; that we are only beginning to de-

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 2$

vclop our economy. America this year produced $80,000,000,000
worth of consumer goods — almost as much as in her peak year of
1940 — on top of another $80,000,000,000 worth of war goods. Our
total production is now $160,000,000,000 and we think there will
be a sufficient demand in America and abroad to keep that level
after the war. For it will take years to fill the accumulated shortages.
There should be a period of high employment in America, Eng-
land, and Russia, with higher living standards. For mankind’s
desires, he tells the reporters, are insatiable; the princes* luxuries of
today are the paupers’ demands of tomorrow. .

In closing, the reporters plead for bi-weekly press conferences.
For the Soviet Government has promised that he can see everything
he desires, and, until he has been in Moscow for a while, he can’t
conceive how closely foreign reporters are held down; how seldom
they are allowed to leave Moscow; how little they see or hear. And
could he possibly take a press representative with him on his Urals
trip?

That, Johnston says cautiously, will have to be decided later.

But now Johnston is off to call on Mikoyan, an intimate of Stalin
and a top Bolshevik, who is People’s Commissar for Foreign Trade,
our official host. Meanwhile I prowl Spaso House. Joyce is up-
stairs, luxuriating in its clean bathrooms, bedbugless American
sheets and the prospect of three American square meals a day. The
ambassador kindly invited us to be his guests here during our stay,
but I have decided to move into one of the Moscow hotels, preferably
the Metropole, where all the reporters live, if it can be arranged. It
may be grim, but you can’t see a capital from an embassy.

Johnston returns from the Kremlin very much impressed by
Mikoyan. “Highly intelligent. He’d be prominent in any country.
In America he’d be a big businessman or industrialist. I told him
that. He seemed pleased,”

Tonight our Russian hosts, with Kirilov in charge, take us to a
concert at Tschaikovsky Hall, which in New York would be
Carnegie Hall. We arrive a little late and just as we edge into our
box the lights go down and the performance begins. There is an
excellent violinist followed by a mezzo-soprano. In between I look
at the hall which seems well built but a little too ornate. Then at
the crowd. It is intent on the stage and in the half-light looks
shabby, except for the red epaulettes on the officers’ uniforms. Most
of their heads are clipped, Prussian style — or perhaps the Prussians
got it from the Russians?

Each act on the stage is introduced by an attractive brunette in a
simply cut dress of gleaming white satin. By contrast with that
shabby audience, she is a dream-princess, and so are the performers.

24 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

The men on the stage are in evening dress and the women slightly
spangled with sequins. But the clothes are well-cut of good materials,
dean and pressed: this drab socialbt audience stares at the stage
as though it were some unattainable fairyland of which they get
just an hour’s glimpse.

A male pianist has just taken his bows and retired to the wings
and they are now clearing away his grand piano for the next act.
How? Well, the slender brunette in the white satin dress is pushing
it, a feat made possible because it is on castors. I find myself un-
consciously leaning forward in my seat and pushing on the box
rail — to help her. Joyce and Eric arc doing the same. But this, it
seems, is a purely Anglo-Saxon reaction, for the audience does not
even rustic. Later, after watching many slender women heave
pianos, trucks and crates around, we become almost as calloused
as Russians. But now in the dark we look at each other wordlessly
and smile.

Kirilov leans forward anxiously.

“You do not care for the pianist?”

“Oh, yes.”

Kirilov looks relieved. “In this country he has large reputation,”
he adds, settling back comfortably into his chair, as the slender girl,
pushing her grand piano, disappears behind the scenery.

Now the lights come up and we go out into the great foyer
where the Russian audience is indulging in the pleasant European
custom of a bctween-acts promenade. In the hard light of the big
chandeliers I get a close look at them.

And Fve never seen anything like it. Ill-fitting clothes, poorly
cut, often flashy but always of tawdry materials. Yes, I know there’s
a war on. And the British also are shabby. But you can tell that at
one time their well-worn clothes were good, while these never were.

This is the Tschaikovsky Concert Hall where scats usually go to
top officials or to crack Stakhanovite workers who get high war-
time wages. But their clothes can’t compare with those of a meet-
ing of the Workers Alliance in my home town of Emporia, Kansas,
at the bottom of our depression. For before our WPA home relief
cases would have appeared in public as shabbily dressed as this
socialist soviet aristocracy, they would have gone down to the
courthouse and torn the case-workers limb from limb. Yet Carnegie
Hall seldom offers a better programme than the one that we heard
on the stage.

I note that the crowd is almost as poorly fed as it is poorly dressed.
The Red Army officers are robust enough. But too many of these
Russian women have bad complexions, which seem to indicate lack
of vitamins. I have always thought of Russians as big people;

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 25

potentially they probably are. But these people, in their twenties
and thirties, were children during the hard days after the revolution;
years of malnutrition show in their bad bone structure. No wonder
we three average-sized Americans stand half a head higher than the
Red Army officers who parade here.

A sartorial note on the Red Army. Its officers’ uniforms follow
the general Russian standard. But their p>oor material is garnished
by flashy red epaulettes with embroidered silver stars indicating the
officers’ rank. They always wear pistols in carefully polished
leather holsters, suspended from Sam Browne belts, which since the
last war have been abolished by the British, American, and French
armies. In the armed forces of the Western countries there is little
difference between the uniforms of officers and men. Indeed, the
British, who are most sensitive to criticisms of former class dis-
tinctions in their army, now have a uniform battle dress for all
ranks so that you cannot tell a general from a private unless you
are close enough to see his inconspicuous shoulder tabs. But in
Russia you are never confused on this point — the officer sparkles
a quarter of a mile away.

There is also the matter of medals. In the Western countries
heroes modestly keep them in their top bureau drawers, and the
award is represented by a tiny bit of coloured ribbon just above
the upper left pocket of the tunic.

The more robust Russians do not understand such false modesty
and Soviet officers’ chests jingle with actual bronze and gold medals.
There is, furthermore, the constant saluting. In the Western coun-
tries, both officers and men regard it as a nuisance, and officers when
passing enlisted men on the streets, look the other way to avoid it
if possible.

Here everybody salutes constantly and from all distances. There
is more saluting in this socialist army than in any other in the world,
except possibly that of Mexico, which in dress this army curiously
resembles. Most of the other old czarist military caste lines between
officers and men have been vigorously revived. No Soviet officer
may carry a conspicuous package on the streets. Officers, of course,
eat in separate messes, and on trains travel in “soft” compartments,
rather than in the hard ones where the enlisted men ride.

Although Red Army officers must still spend some time in the
ranks, schools like Annapolis and West Point have been established
where they give promising youngsters training towards commissions.
Also the Suvarov cadet schools have recently been opened, admitting
sons of officers and orphans as young as eight years old.

I have already noticed a further difference. There are on the
drab streets of Moscow far fewer soldiers than in either Washington

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

or New York. The Russians have a theory that the place for a
man in uniform is at the front. Few of those dangling medals ever
get tangled in typewriters.

These officers in the foyer of the concert hall are apparently on
leave and, except for the fact that they arc undersized, are fine-
looking men. They are usually blue-eyed blonds with high cheek-
bones, and their unsmiling Slav faces and clipped bulletheads con-
stantly remind me of old-time Prussian officers, as they solemnly
patrol the foyer with these shabby, undernourished women.

But now our hosts tear us away from this revolving crowd to a
room near our box where a little bctwcen-thc-acts supper is being
served in our honour by the director of the theatre. A table for
about fifteen is set with immaculate linen. Before each napkin is
the tall white wine glass, the shorter stemmed red wine glass, the
tubular champagne glass, and the squat vodka glass. In the centre a
dazzling array of Russian hors d’oeuvres — on fifteen or twenty plat-
ters; smoked salmon and delicious Volga sturgeon, sliced, spiced ham,
cold roast chicken, salami and countless kinds of sliced sausages.

But before we can begin on these, the gnarled old waiters in
baggy dress suits pass around bowls of cold caviar: the fresh loose
variety, its bowl resting in a bed of cracked ice, or the pressed
salted kind which you slice. I take what would be a couple of
dollars’ worth in America. With it is served a great slab of sweet,
unsalted butter, and little pastries, which remind you of mince pic
tarts, if the mincemeat were unsweetened.

This initial course of caviar, sweet butter, and mincemeat pastries
precedes the smoked sturgeon and sausages, and with it goes white
wine. We were to find out that it preceded every meal — including
breakfast — which our hosts served us during our stay in the Soviet
Union.

It was, for Russians, only a light theatre snack. But it was de-
licious and I dallied over the last forkful of rich French pastry and
the last sip of champagne, talking and waiting for the curtain-call,
which had not come yet.

Finally Kirilov said, ‘'You are finished, Mr. White?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Then perhaps we go back now.”

As we slipped into our box, Kirilov nodded toward the stage.
The house lights went down and the footlights came up. Only then
did they casually explain that they had kept this underfed audience
of about 5,000 waiting for ten minutes while I dallied with the
second piece of chocolate layer pastry and that last sip of cham-
pagne. But no Russian thought it unusual. After all, weren’t we
honoured guests of the Soviet Union?

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This truly oriental hospitality has nothing to do with Lenin or the
theory of Surplus Values. These people may be socialists, but they
are also Russians. As such, they inherit an even stronger tradition
from the Mongolian Emperor Genghis Khan than they do from
Karl Marx.

Looking around the hall, I wonder where they keep the old
people. All these faces are young: in their twenties and thirties.
So were those on the streets this afternoon. What became of
Russians who should now be in their fifties, sixties or seventies ? Did
they sicken and die during the terrible famines of the Revolution ?
Were they liquidated in later purges ? Or have they been diluted by
the terrific Russian birth rate so that they only seem to be few?
Now, back in America, I still wonder.

In Russia if you decide to move, you must go through about as
many formalities as you would need to get married. I want to move
in with the other newspapermen at the Hotel Mctropole. But in
Moscow you don’t just arrive in a taxi (for there are none) at the
hotel of your choice. Foreigners stay at one of three hotels, but
they are the best Moscow affords except for the Moskva which has
been built since the Revolution and is reserved for high-ranking
communists, important government officials (which is the same
thing), well-known artists, and top Red Army officers.

Before going to the Metropole, I stroll through the lobbies of the
Moskva. Its public rooms are in an uninteresting, classic style, which
is best represented in New York by the Grand Central Station.

This barn of Guernsey cream marble has only two notes of
emphasis. In the centre of the lobby is a statuary group; a spike-
bearded smiling Lenin has one arm, fraternally, on the shoulder of
a smiling Stalin, while with the other Lenin gesticulates. At the
lobby’s far end, Stalin again looms more than life size, this time
alone and in oils. Above the painting, electric lights burn like
candles before an ikon.

There are none of these in the gloomy main lobby of the Metro-
pole, which is understandable because it was built before the Revolu-
tion and is now maintained almost exclusively for foreigners. But
just off the lobby in the offices of Intourist, which runs the hotel,
there hangs the standard collection of Soviet heroes — enormous
framed photographs of Lenin, Stalin, Marx, Engels, Kalinin, and
Molotov.

A word here about Intourist. It is a government-owned travel
agency and you can start thinking Cooks or the American Express,
because in peacetime it arranges tours with hotel reservations and
meals. But in Russia it has complete charge of the movements and

qQ report on the RUSSIANS

crcaturc-comforts of practically all foreigners, and you cannot stir
without it.

For here it is impossible to drop into a restaurant for a casual
meal, go to a hotel for a night, or climb on a train for a trip. A
Russian belongs to his job. He and his family usually sleep in an
apartment house which his factory owns. He probably cats, in his
factory dining room, food raised on his factory’s farm. His children
attend a day-nursery which it maintains. They pjay games and go
to movies in its culture palace and they go on vacations when it
can spare them on trains which it designates to resorts and workers*
rest homes which it controls.

Foreigners can function in this rigidly ordered world only if some
state organization provides for their living space, transportation,
food, and ration coupons, which is where Intourist comes in.

The Soviet Government realizes that it cannot force foreigners
from the Western countries down to the sub-WPA standard of
living, which is the lot of most Soviet citizens. Consequently, it
accords foreigners privileges which in the Western world are only
common decencies, but which are fantastic luxuries in the Soviet
Union.

There is first of all a special diplomatic rate of exchange for for-
eigners. The rouble is officially presumed to be worth about 5*5
to the dollar; foreigners may buy them at about 8 cents each. At
this special rate, Moscow prices become about what they are in
New York; the subway is 4 cents; a hotel room is $4 or $5 a night
and, when obtainable at all, butter is about 90 cents a pound and
eggs are 50 cents a dozen.

The foreigner may also with his special ration book buy at a
de luxe diplomatic store whose doors are closed to all Soviet citizens.
Here he can get groceries, yard goods, and sometimes clothing,
as well as limited but fairly adequate quantities of wines, cigarettes,
and vodka.

I was accorded a large and comfortable room at the Metropole
and presented with a book of ration tickets, each good for a meal
in one of the Metropole’s two dining rooms reserved for foreigners.
It had still a third dining room for the selected Russians who were
lucky enough to have permission to stay there. I never saw it, nor
did they ever see ours. I am under the impression that ours was
better; yet I am sure that it would have meant only trouble for
the authorities had we been allowed to compare menus.

How the Japanese ate I also never learned. They too were
quartered at the Metropole, but the Soviet Union, with exquisite
tact, fed its Eastern guests in a dining room separate firom its
Western ones. However, we could pass them in the ground-floor

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 29

lobby, overtake them in corridors or stare stonily over their shoulders
while riding in the elevator facing them. We were icily correct
with them and they with us. We would stop talking when we saw
them because of course all of them knew English, but I never
understood why they also stopped chattering when they saw one
of us.

Being icily correct toward the Japanese was, I was told, easier
now than it had been. The American Embassy has on its staff
several young and spirited naval attaches and one of these was calling
on an American reporter at the Metropole when a Domei corre-
spondent stepped into the elevator facing him. It was a few weeks
after Pearl Harbour and the Japanese began to grin widely. Then,
by moving his eyes, but not looking the naval officer in the eye,
the Japanese began to count his shining brass buttons — beginning at
the bottom, slowly up to the top of his chest and then slowly down
again. By the time the Japanese, still grinning broadly, stepped
out at the third floor, the naval officer was rigid to the point of
apoplexy, opening and closing his fists convulsively.

My hotel room with an adjoining bath was comfortable but some-
what depressing. The washbasin drain was stopped so that it took
ten minutes for my shaving water to run out, leaving in the bowl
a scum of soap and whisker stubble, but I soon found this is standard
in Russia. There was no toilet paper but this is also standard. It is a
luxury, purchasable only by foreigners at their embassy commis-
saries. The natives get along nicely with the newspapers, Pravda and
Izvestia, or in an emergency. Red Star. War and the Working Class,
the sprightly weekly which is published by the organization succeed-
ing the recently dissolved Comintern, and which attacks and criti-
cizes foreign nations with the same vigour followed by its predecessor,
is not favoured because it is printed on heavier, slick-coated paper
stock.

Breakfast at the Metropole, for which I surrendered a coupon,
is served in your room and consists of hot tea in a glass, a lump
of sugar, black bread, butter, and a choice either of caviar or one
hen egg, any style. It was ample.

At lunch in the dining room are assembled the same American
and English reporters you see every day, with a sprinkling of
Chinese. Lunch is decent but not lavish — always a soup, then either
fish or meat in modest portions, plus potatoes and a vegetable, and
usually canned plums for dessert. This gives you a healthy appetite
for supper, which is the slimmest meal of aU — bread, a few slices of
Bologna, salami, or some other smoked sausage, a couple of sweet
cookies, and, of course, tea.

It was not enough and, consequently, most of the American

30 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

rqK)rtcrs forwent it, surrendering their coupons and applying to the
American Embassy for permission to buy at its commissary. They
took their purchases to their rooms and each evening over hot-plates
prepared messes of canned corn and stewed tomatoes and such,
which they had along with American coffee and condensed milk.
The meal always began with a glass of canned grapefruit juice and
seemed delicious after the vitamin-starved Russian diet, which in-
cluded no milk, little fresh fhiit and very little meat. Most American
reporters promptly lose from lo to 20 pounds on the Russian diet.
One developed a mild case of scurvy before he surrendered to the
embassy commissary.

I chronicle this not to make you sorry for the press, but for the
Russians, who must live on so much less.

After moving my bags to the Metropole, I stop by the embassy
to change a hundred American dollars into 1,200 roubles. Once
settled, I go for a walk in the town, with that comfortable feeling
you have when a large roll of money is rustling in your pocket and
you may buy what you like in a strange city. Slowly during my
walk, I discover that there is nothing I can buy. Old clothes per-
haps, but mine are infinitely better; for new ones I would need
ration coupons. I see several hotels, but my ration coupons arc
good only for the Metropole. In London, Paris, or New York,
killing an hour, I would buy a newspaper and read it over a drink —
if only a Coca-Cola in a drug store. Here no one ever kills an hour.
There arc no cafts, bars, or hours of leisure time. The limited sup-
plies of newspapers were sold out hours ago.

There remains the subway, which I can enter for the equivalent
of four American cents. It has been proclaimed the world’s best.
It is a good one, exactly like the best in New York or London,
with the difference that it is cleaner and its waiting platforms and
corridors are lavishly done in costly polished marbles. Yet the
system is small with few stations serving only a small per cent of the
people.

In the Western world no one expects effortful beauty in a sub-
way, which is as functional as a can-opener. Nor would any transit
corporation bother to provide it. Instead they would spend the cost
of this polished marble on more miles of track and more stations,
swelling their capitalist profits by taking in more nickels from a
public eager to ride nearer to work.

Qpeer things can happen in a system where conventional supply
and demand have been tossed out of the window.

As I come out at the station opposite my hotel, I at last find
something I can buy. An old lady with a cart on wheels is selling
some kind of soil drink by the glass and ten people are waiting in

HEPOKT on TftE RUSSIANS

fine. I fall in at the end. From one spigot on the cart, carbonated
water streams into the glass. From the second, a few drops of cherry
syrup faintly stain the water a delicate shade of pink. This Soviet
Coca-Cola (the glass is the same size) costs 24 cents at the cheap
diplomatic rate, at which I buy my roubles. Children and adults,
clutching fistfuls of roubles, wait impatiently in the line to buy this
unrationed delicacy.

That evening I find still another way to spend my money.
Around the corner is a movie, and the girls who run the Intourist
bureau get me a ticket. The film, they explain, is the famous Ameri-
can picture “Jungle,” now so popular in Russia — but surely, I have
seen it?

I haven’t. “Jungle” turns out to be a decent B picture, a screen
adaptation of Kipling’s Jungle Book. But since the scene is laid in
a tiny village in India, it hardly gives a picture of life in the outside
world. I had gone hoping to see how they would react to an
American picture, which gave, casually, just a fair idea of American
life — an American home or well-dressed average Americans getting
into cars or trains.

But these girls, holding hands with Red Army youngsters, are
delighted with “Jungle.”

I’ve been out ear-biting. Henry Cassidy of the Associated Press
had me over for dinner and afterwards several other correspond-
ents drop in. Ear-biting is a technical newspaper term for a corre-
spondent who comes to a foreign city for a short time and pumps
the regular correspondents or diplomats there for the rich fund of
information and background, which it has cost them years to col-
lect, and some of which they can’t write and stay where they are.

My conscience is fairly easy about biting ears here because I can
answer their eager questions about America, and because, when in
the past I’ve been stationed abroad, I’ve always let travelling re-
porters bite my car for helpful information.

I ask about the Free German Committee and what it is up to,
and the boys tell me it is still kicking around Moscow, but for the
present the Kremlin is giving it the brush-off, because they feel
their talks with the Americans and the British about the future of
Germany are really getting somewhere. But the boys say now
and then you bump into these Free German generals at the opera.
They’re allowed to attend, well-chaperoned, of course, and wearing
Russian army overcoats over their German uniforms so they won’t
be too conspicuous.

Most of them arc fro^n the German Sixth Army, which fought
hopelessly at Stalingrad. Why did they come over to speak on the

32 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

radio for the Soviets? Some of them didn’t, the boys say, in par-
ticular von Paulus* who commanded the whole army. The Soviets
took American correspondents in to see him not long after his sur-
render. They wamea them to be sure that their questions were in
line with his rights under the Hague convention, to which they
were rigidly adhering.

Von Paulus, they said, is a big, imposing guy with a nervous
facial twitch.

“ What’s your name ? ”

“Frciderick von Paulus !” he thundered.

“How old are you?”

“ Fifty-two ! ” he roared again. And on all other questions he told
them to go to hell, which was his right under the Hague con-
vention.

Why did the other German generals come over? Well, most
of them were either from Stalingrad or from other points on the
front where German air transport had failed to get them out, and
they were furious. One general had been getting mail from his
wife in Berlin by parachute drop for sever^ weeks. In her last
letter, she asked him to try to send her some Russian cigarettes,
which maybe she could trade on the Berlin black market for a new
dress. The general, surrounded on all sides by Russians, hadn’t
cared much for the idea.

The boys arc sure German prisoners here arc being treated cor-
rectly. They say Russian civilians are sore about it. For one thing,
if a German prisoner is sick he can get sulfa, which is in accord
with the Hague rules because the Russians provide it for their own
soldiers. Only there isn’t enough for Russian civilians.

As for the Free Poles in Russia, the boys think we’ll hear more
of them because they insist the Poles are actually free. They say
the Russians have assembled and armed several Polish divisions,
which are anything but puppets. I ask about Father Orlcmanski
and Professor Lange, who have just left Moscow.

The Father didn’t impress them as a particularly alert type. But
the professor was something else again. Some of them had gone
down with him when tlicy let him talk to the Free Polish divisions,
and they had come back convinced that these Poles weren’t puppets.

“How about collectivization?” Lange asked them. “Do you
want that for the New Poland ? ”

“No !” they all shouted at once. They said they wanted tractors
and harvesting machinery. Maybe some big industries should be
owned by the state, but not the land. The first point was to beat
the Germans, and argue about the rest later.

* This was in June: in August von Paulus came over.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

However, towards the end, they began to clamour, We want
Lvov ! We want Vilna ! ” — two towns which the Russians had no
intention of letting them have. The Russians were embarrassed but
they didn’t interfere, the reporters said.

Just what, I asked, will the Russians want in Europe? That was
easy, the correspondents agreed. They already had the Baltic
States. They want some kind of frontier settlement with Poland,
approximately the Curzon line. They want to be sure Germany
is rendered harmless. Beyond this they won’t want much, except
to be sure that the governments in their border states — Finland,
Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, and Bulgaria — will not
be hostile to them. They will not be particularly interested in the
economic or political systems of these states provided they are not
a threat.

Of course, if through bad management we leave a power vacuum
any place in Europe and riots, disorder, and anarchy get started —
they’ll move in.

But what they really want is a durable peace so they can build
up their own country. If we insist on decent compromises, setting
up governments, not Communist but friendly to Russia, they will
take it. But to carry out this policy, we may find ourselves supporting
mildly socialist governments all over Europe.

Almost all the reporters now working Moscow have come here
since the war. The old crowd, of which Walter Duranty was dean,
is gone. Perhaps they were glad to go. The Russian friends they
had made laboriously over twenty years were either shot or exiled,
many for the crime of associating with foreigners, so that the few
who were left were afraid to see their foreign friends except officially
and at large functions.

These new boys, lacking experience of those years, carry none
of its bitterness. Their estimates of what Russia wants seem shrewd
and realistic. Russia wants first and last peace, but not at the price
of safety.

We’ve been in a series of huddles about Eric’s speech. It’s a good
one which he’s been working on for weeks, and it has got to be
delivered, because copies of it are already in America for release.
It’s a clear statement of the viewpoint with which he, representing
American business, approaches the Socialist Soviet Republic. But
where should he give it? You can’t just mount the first soap box.

This afternoon our host. Commissar Mikoyan of the Narkomv-
neshtorg (People’s Commissariat of Foreign Trade), is to give a big
luncheon at which he will welcome us officially to the Soviet Union.
This seems the ideal time until Ambassador Harriman points out

34 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

that Russians never make speeches at banquets. The speech, we
point out, will take only half an hour. And another half hour, the
ambassador observes, to translate into Russian, for you can’t lecture
your host in English, of which he understands less than he does
Arabic.

But then we get a plan which satisfies everyone. At Miloyan’s
luncheon Eric will deliver in English his first paragraph. Then he
will sit down while the interpreter translates not only this but the
entire speech into Russian. Not until its final paragraph will Eric rise
again to hoist his glass in that toast which ends all Russian speeches.

The luncheon is at Spiridonovka House, another staggering
czarist palace. Even Spaso would be lost in these marble canyons.
On the terrace we get the usual Russian cocktail, which tastes like
a Manhattan, and chat politely with our hosts. All the officials of
the Narkomvneshtorg are there, and they have asked Harriman and
some of his embassy staff— perhaps thirty in all.

Next me at the table is a fox-faced Russian who fills my vodka
glass and then his own.

“Come, Mr. White, we drink to the second front, no? There
will perhaps some day be one?’’

“But that was over long ago.”

“Oh, no — it is even now in the newspapers there will soon be
one — perhaps, yes? So we will drink anyway.”

“The landing on the Atlantic Coast? We don’t call it that. In
capitalist countries, the fronts are not numbered as they are here.”

“How do you say, then?”

“The first front when Poland fell — with us this is number one.
You remember that. The second front was in 1940 when France
fell. Surely that is not forgotten in Russia, even though you were
neutral. The third front is the invasion of Jugoslavia and Greece.
Again you were neutral, but you remember. The next front is
when Hitler attacks the Soviet Union in 1941. We were very sorry
to learn it. For us it was the fourth front. The fifth front is when
Japan attacks America and England and we must both fight in the
Pacific. Here again you arc neutral. The sixth front is when Eng-
land and America land in North Africa to chase the Germans and
Italians out. The seventh front is when we have landed in Italy — ”

He interrupts — now he is laughing. “But anyway to drink to the
new front — for you the eighth, to me the second front.” So we
drink. But he is not yet downed.

“Last year when I am in America, New York newspapers call it
second firont, and even then they demand it be started at once.”

“Not all newspapers. Most of them say we should wait until oiu*
generals are ready. In America all newspapers do not say the same

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 35

thing. It is because they are what is called free. It must be very
confosing to foreigners,”

Now comes the usual preliminary butter, caviar, and pastry,
during which we are supposed also to nibble the cold smoked and
jellied meats. Then the meal, course by course, wine by wine, begins
building up. A soup with sherry. Sturgeon with a sauterne from
the Crimea. After it, broiled grouse with a chilled white hock
from the Caucasus.

Across the table, boxed in between Eric and the ambassador, sits
Commissar Mikoyan. He is short, plump, dark, and immaculately
tailored — like a Hollywood executive on a visit to New York. His
dark suit and tie are in the best of quiet good taste.

He is an Armenian. His eyes are jet black, his face sharp, and
his massive Semitic nose would come to a point except that its tip
abruptly curls under, pointing down at his chin. The profile of an
old Assyrian coin. Or of an extremely suave oriental rug salesman.
I would guess that the Narkomvneshtorg takes few wooden nickels.

The meal pauses for grilled filet mignon and then comes the
climax of all Russian state banquets, cold, shaved, boiled sucking
pigs — four of them, each on its little platter.

A razor-sharp knife has separated each rib, so that the baby pork
chops arc as thin and white as the bread in tea-party sandwiches.

The wines, two courses ago, had switched to red and with the
pig we are given a rich, purplish burgundy from the Ukraine.
Across the table Mikoyan is looking like an Assyrian shekel;
Averell like an ambassador; Eric like a man who is about to make
a speech. He is emptying his mouth uneasily and looking up and
down the table to size up the audience. Joyce and I exchange looks.
Now they are filling our glasses with a golden Soviet Socialist con-
coction known as pepper vodka and my neighbour insists that I
again drink bottoms up. The boiled pig ribs are exchanged for a
miniature castle of ice cream and pastry; the wine shifts to Crimean
champagne.

And now Mikoyan, with the expression of an Oriental who, of
course, doesn’t want to sell you the rug at all, only wants, as one
connoisseur to another, to let you admire the fine points of its
weave and texture, rises with a smooth toast of welcome.

Eric’s face is frozen into a beatific smile. Only Joyce and I know
that he is wondering how those carefully sharpened cracks about
the American Conununist Party will sound after the satin smooth-
ness of this welcome. But he knows what he is going to say — the
speech has already been mimeographed and distributed in two lan-
guages and he can only clutch the rim of his barrel and listen to
the approaching rumble of Niagara ahead.

36 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

In point of fact it goes over extremely well. When he sits down,
we study the faces of the Russians to see how they are taking it.
At first they are grave. Then when Eric says of the American
Ciommunists, “ When you take pepper they sneeze, when you have
indigestion, they belch — one of the younger Russians hastily
covers a snicker with his napkin; several others force back smiles
and look down the table at Mikoyan. Finally, he smiles and now
all the others smile too. At last he laughs and so do they.

Next day even Pravda prints a lengthy digest of it — except, of
course, the reference to the American Communist Party. An Ameri-
can, long a resident of Moscow, had sourly predicted that the
Russian papers would not carry a line.

“Anyway we are distributing mimeographed copies to the Rus-
sians at the dinner.”

“ Much good that will do. The NKVD will take them away as
they leave.”

But the NKVD didn’t !

THREE

A DAY or so later we are shown our first Soviet factory. Officially
it’s called Factory No. 38. It is in Moscow’s industrial suburbs
and it makes the famous Stormovik plane for the Red Air Force.
Approaching it we see enormous sign boards at the entrance on
which are given the most recent production figures, the names of
workers who have overfulfilled their quota — only here the word is
“norm” — and big pictures of Lenin and Stalin, apparently painted
by the same artist who does the portraits of the tattooed man, the
snake charmer, and the two-headed baby for the side-show. All
this faces a square, and there is also a little raised platform in
which there is also a red wooden tribune for speakers. We later
discover that these are standard in all Soviet factories.

Before inspecting this one, we are taken to the office of the
director, who in America might corresp)ond to the president of the
company. He is a young man of thirty-seven, Vasili Nikolayevitch
Smymov by name, and tells us he has worked in aviation twenty-
four years — eight years as director.

His office has the same standard of luxury and comfort as that
of a comparable American concern with these differences: the
ponderous, heavily carved furniture is stained black. At first we

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 37

assume it is from some czarist atdc where it has been catching dust
since the nineties. Later we find it in most factory directors’ offices
that we visit.

Also standard are the large 2x2^ foot photographs of Lenin
and Stalin on the wall behind the desk. From Moscow to Central
Siberia we see in directors’ offices exactly the same wrinkles around
Stalin’s eyes — precisely the same few grey hairs in Lenin’s beard.

The director tells us his plant has been operating continuously
here for only two years because during the siege of Moscow it
was evacuated; only the walls remained. Eric immediately plunges
into a series of acute questions on labour^ wages, and hours, from
which the following picture emerges. It proves to be true of most
Soviet war factories.

The director tells Eric that 65 per cent of his employees are
now women, that before the war it was about 30 per cent. Hours ?
The regular eight-hour day, plus three daily hours of overtime,
for which they are paid time and a half, as in most American fac-
tories. But they work six days a week, which makes a working
week of sixty-six hours. The director hastens to add that boys and
girls under eighteen work only eight hours a day, five days a week.

Wages are paid to the plant’s 10,000 workers twice a month and
on a piecework basis. For a predetermined quota or “norm” of
work, the worker receives 750 roubles per month. Then, if he over-
fulfils this norm (and they usually do) his pay goes up on a sliding
scale. So the true average would be 1,000 roubles a month, and an
occasional 1,500 or 2,000.

Since the rouble has a purchasing power, in terms of rationed
Soviet goods, of about 8 cents in America, the Soviet war worker
gets, in terms of American purchasing power, between $20 and
$40 for his sixty-six-hour week.

However, other elements brighten the picture. The worker may
buy his meals in the factory’s restaurant; if he chooses to cat all
three there, that will be only 5 roubles a day. The factory also
maintains nurseries and kindergartens. And, of course, women get
the same pay as men ; they are surprised that we even ask about this.

But now Eric turns to the director. What does he get, if he
doesn’t mind telling us? He doesn’t; he receives a basic salary of
3,000 roubles a month (in rationed purchasing power, about $240)
except that, if the plant wins a production banner (this one like
most Soviet war plants has), he then gets 150 per cent more up to
a maximum of 10,000 roubles a month (about $800). However, he
tells us with a wry smile, he has no time to spend all this money.

But Eric is now back to the workers ; what about their grievances ?
Well, they take them up with the trade union committee for their

38 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

dq^artment of the plant. The director himself hears complaints twice
a week* But if they don’t like his decision ? Then they have the right
to appeal. But to whom? Even clear up to Stalin? Even to Stalin.

But now for the Stormovik factory itself, and we start trudging
through. It is, first of all, poorly lit and unbelievably dirty. It has
no production line in the American sense but rather a series of
connected piles between bottlenecks, with women waiting idle at
their machines for the line to start moving again.

It is jammed full of the best American machine tools, but seems
to lack proper organization. At one point, the assembly belt is a
makeshift canvas affair. The floors throughout arc uneven with
holes in the concrete. Piles of metal shavings are everywhere. No
one bothers to clean up. Many of the girls wear gunny sacks tied
around their feet. Others have crude wooden sandals with a nail
sticking up between the great and second toes. In these, they scram-
ble around in the dim light. Here they arc moving (by wheel-
barrow) a load of unfinished parts which spill at a bump in the
floor. The girls must stop to pick them up.

Johnston falls back to whisper, “Back in the States the best rough
test I know of the efficiency of any factory is its cleanliness. Any
dirty shop is sure to be an inefficient one.” Then he catches up
with his guide and interpreters.

Maybe these people figure there arc 200,000,000 Russians and that
it matters little if a few are inconvenienced ? But tliis floor could
be repaired at the cost of just one of these expensive Icnd-lcase
automatic drills of which this factory has such a profusion, and
then its efficiency might rise as much as 25 per cent.

Yes, I know the Russian girls arc willing to endure any hard-
ships. But a hard-boiled American production man, tr^ng to
squeeze the last thin dime of value from his workers, would start
by making them comfortable with good light and tidy floors, to
increase the man-hour production rate.

Now for the Stormovik plane. In front, a sheath of thick armour
covers both pilot and motor, which must cut down the cruising
range and make it cumbersome. I’m amazed that the heavy struc-
tural parts of the plane arc made, not of aluminium, but of steel. They
explain that the wings were formerly made of wood, but that now a
certain amount of aluminium is used. This is true, and all of the
aluminium that I sec here is stamped Alcoa. Apparently Soviet alu-
minium production is low.

The Stormovik’s rear fuselage is a long, hollow shell made of
wood-plastic. The plane needs no oxygen system, as it seldom oper-
ates at high altitudes. It opens up on enemy tanks with its pair of
as-ihm. cannon or sprays infantry with its twin machine guns from

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 39

a range sometimes as close as 20 yards. This is possible because of
its slow speed and its armour, protecting pilot and motor.

We find it also carries light bombs, and when I ask if it is a
dive bomber or a level bomber, they proudly reply that it is both.
Apparently they have tried to turn out a general utility ground
co-operation plane hopefully designed to do everything, including
the laundry. However, the Stormovik’s designers have done an ex-
cellent job, granted the limiting shortages of material which afflict
the Soviet Union. Russia once had two of the world’s biggest
aluminium plants but both were overrun by the Germans.

Most of this information we pick up at the elaborate banquet in
the director’s dining room at the end of the inspection. There
again are the red wine, white wine, champagne, and vodka glasses,
the tremendous array of cold hors d’oeuvres, starting with caviar
and pastry. Standing behind the table, I see a familiar face. It is
the smiling steward who presided over the banquet at the Tschai-
kovsky Theatre.

This struck me only as a coincidence. But wc were just getting
on to the ropes. Little did we dream that his smiling face was to
haunt us like a recurring nightmare. He was, it developed, the chief
caterer for In tourist, and everywhere we were entertained we were
to find his beaming smile. He went ahead, of course, with trunks
of pickled fishes and sausage, and hampers of wines. Whenever we
entered a dining room, there he was, beaming above his crystal
glasses and iced tubs of caviar, set up for business, whether the
scene was a factory, a railway diner, or a picnic near abandoned
German trenches on the Karelian Isthmus.

Johnston asks a number of questions about how the company
designs its products, what plans they have for peacetime production,
how many units they plan to turn out and at what price they will
be sold.

But these the director and his aissistants can’t answer. They aren’t
holding out on us; it’s clear they don’t know. Such matters are
decided by the Kremlin.

Between toasts Johnston whispers to inc: “That director’s a good
man. He could hold an important job in the States. Maybe not
quite the job he has here, not president of the company. But notice,
he doesn’t really run it here.

“He has charge only of production; in America this is handled
by a plant manager, who may or may not be a vice-president. An
American corporation president must think not only of production,
but of new designs, new markets and uses for his products, the
cost and quality of his raw materials, possibly financing, a sales
organization, and what the competition may be up to.

40 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

‘‘And you’ll notice that on all such policy questions, this guy
didn’t know. Obviously, the Kremlin decides. Like any plant man-
ager, he does the best he can with what they give him.

“ We’re talking to production men. The planning brains of this
thing arc in the Kremlin, not in the factories.”

I study the faces of the Russians around the table; they are
familiar — serious, orthodox, industrious young men anxious to get
on in the world — the same type you might find at a junior execu-
tives* lunch in an American factory. There they would be regis-
tered Republicans without having given it too much thought, but
because the boss was a Republican and because it was the party
of respectability and its hallmark would be helpful to a young man
anxious to get on in the world.

Here their prototypes are Communists for the same reason. These
men would average thirty-two years old. In 1917, when Com-
munism was a revolutionary party in Russia (sometimes it still is
abroad, but only when it is helpful to Russian foreign policy), these
men were boys of five. When Lenin died they were twelve years
old.

The Revolution was over and those young men most likely to
succeed followed the Communist Party because it represented
authority, power, and wealth, as has the Republican party to a
lesser extent in America.

What becomes, in Russia, of the normal proportion of misfits
who in America arc members of the Communist Party ? I am sure
that on this trip I shall meet no one among these successful Soviet
industrialists who would not vehemently insist that all is well in this
best of all possible Socialist worlds. Still I am curious as to what
they do with their misfits. I wonder that Stalin docs not set up
something like the United States Communist Party here in Russia, so
that he can keep track of them instead of driving them underground.

Character note on Eric: he doesn’t change with his environment;
doesn’t pretend, in Moscow, to be anything but a successful busi-
nessman from Spokane. What natives in various parts of the world
may think of this is of no great concern to him. That’s what he is :
they can take it or leave it.

He tours Moscow plants dressed as he would to tour them in
Spokane; wearing not a coat, but a heavy blue knit sweater and
a wide-brimmed, pale gray hat. I too come from a Stetson country
and know this for a good one.

The Riissians eye it curiously as they would a theatrical costume,
for they are a very formal folk. But it is an int^al part of Eric
Johnston.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

He handles the toasts well. They formally offer one to President
Roosevelt, so it would then be an insult if Eric did not toast Stalin.
They drink to the success of our armies in Italy, so we offer one to
the Red Army. A Russian toast is a two-minute speech — a consider-
able improvement on the lengthy harangues at American banquets.
Eric handles his part giacefully and smoothly, but never ceases to
be exactly what he is.

At the outset he explains to them that his doctor has forbidden
him to drink, but that America is a country of specialization (here
the Russians gravely nod) so he has brought along two assistants
— Mr. O’Hara, who takes care of the women for him (the Russians
solemnly appraise Joyce), and Mr. White, who does all of his
drinking.

Such banter would pass unnoticed in America, but the Russians
take it with earnestness. Drinking is a serious business in Russia — a
test of manhood and prestige. So now they turn earnestly on me,
filling my glass and proffering toasts to Russo-American relations,
which it would be insulting to refuse. Down the table Eric is
beaming brightly and a shade triumphantly.

I rise and say that it is true that I have entered Russia as an
assistant to Mr. Eric Johnston, who is an important capitalist,
and that they all know from their newspapers how American
workers are exploited. But now they see it before their eyes: that
American capitalists even force American workers to drink their
champagne. So now, I as an American worker call upon the Russian
workers for solidarity in the class struggle, and ask their help in
making Mr. Johnston drink his share of the champagne.

It falls flat as I write it, but in its setting it seemed to go down
rezisonably well; at least, it had a temporarily calming effect on
Eric.

The next morning Kirilov arrives to take us to another factory,
one of the most important in Russia. For here they make the Soviet
Union’s automobiles. In America a dozen major companies turn out
a hundred models. In this classless society one company makes one
model,* and its entire output goes to its single privileged class — the
top communists, factory directors, and government officials.

It has been called the Soviet Lincoln. It looks rather like a 1935
model Buick sedan with the difference that it is a sloppy engineering
job. Its name, pronounced “Zees” in English, comes from three
Russian words meaning “Factory in the name of Stalin.’*

We rode in one daily. It is too heavy for its springs ; if you ride in
the back seat, every time it encounters a jolt, the base of your spine

* The Gorki plant, which we did not visit, also makes only one passenger car model.

42 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

thunders down through the shallow seat cushion padding with a
sickening bump on the rear axle. The various layers of its safety
glass are prone to come unglued, so that the pane “frosts.” However,
its paint job, tin petticoat streamlining and instrument-panel design
could compare with Detroit’s nobbiest, and its tyres and motor —
except for occasional fits of starter trouble — seemed dependable, for
it always got us there and brought us safely home.

The director of the Zees plant, Ivan Likhatchov, is a stumpy,
serious little man of forty-eight who carefully cultivates a slight
resemblance to Stalin. He wears a cap, grows a soup-strainer
moustache, and receives us in riding trousers and high black Russian
boots. At the factory’s entrance, there are, of course, the usual
circus-poster portraits of Stalin and Lenin, and inside are their
customary photographs.

First, he gives us an over-all picture of the plant. It employs
40,000 workers, and has 12,000 more youngsters in its factory
school. Formerly, it made trucks (the Soviet Union, with over
200,000,000 people, made 300,000 motor vehicles per year at the
peak compared with America’s 1941 production of 4,800,000 for
Its 130,000,000 people)^ Now it produces trucks, half-tracks and
munitions lor the Red Army.

This year it will make a few hundred passenger cars. The Kom-
somols (young communists) in the factory school started making
tommy guns for the Red Army when the Germans were only 35
kilometres from Moscow, and went into production in only three
weeks.

The Zees plant now has four daughter plants turning out army
trucks and munitions in the Urals. Their directors were formerly
shop chiefs in this plant.

Automobile production started here in 1924, the car being
designed around a Soviet adaptation of the famous American
Hercules Engine made in Canton, Ohio. Johnston and I exchange
curious looks — I don’t happen to have heard of the famous Her-
cules.* Likhatchov came in 1926 when it had only 670 workers.
Beginning in 1930 the plant bought $125,000,000 worth of American
macliinery over a five-year period. Before the war they bought many
German tools which the director says are good for precision work,
although they have declined in quality in the last six years because,
he says, in Germany the war came first, and also they exported
inferior products.

The director tells us with quiet pride that he has visited American

* Which was my ignorance. I have since learned that the Hercules plant in Canton,
Ohio, turns out a rumed tractor*type motor, justly famous in this field and doing a big
job in our motorized di\4sions.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 43

factories at Detroit, Flint, Buffalo, Saginaw, Pittsburgh, and
Chicago, that he is a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers
and a subscriber to Iron Age,

But now Eric starts a series of acute questions: How do they
cope with the problem of absenteeism? The director is honestly
puzzled by the word even after it is thoroughly explained to him.

A worker who is ill, he tells us, goes to the plant doctor to get a
leave of absence. If the case is serious, in this plant his social
insurance would pay go per cent of his wages for three months.
If he is still not recovered, he gets either a temporary invalid’s
status or maybe lighter work. A pregnant woman gets several weeks’
leave of absence before her baby, and after it. The average family,
he tells us, is five children for the city worker and about eight for
farmers.

But Eric persists; he’s not asking about sickness — he wants to
know about the problem of absenteeism. When the director finally
understands, he seems amazed that such a question should even be
asked, because he says, of course, they have no such cases here.
Lazy or tardy workers are rebuked by the wall newspaper or de-
nounced over the shop public address system. If it happens two
or three times the matter is taken up with him by the union. We
gather it is a grim proceeding.

Absenteeism seems to be as rare here as it would be in the Atlanta
Penitentiary, and for many of the same reasons.

It is hard for our capitalist minds to grasp the idea that under
socialism, possibly the factory belongs to the workers but certainly
the worker belongs to his factory; without it he has nothing to
eat and no place to sleep.

Now we tour the plant. Again it seems to have no smooth-
running assembly line but a series of linked bottlenecks and con-
nected piles. We are as great a curiosity to the workers as they to us.
They look up, but they seem to have no fear of the bosses. They
look him straight in the eye as an American worker would.

The Zees trucks and half-tracks look sturdy by American peace-
time standards, but they can’t compare with the rugged giants
which Detroit pours out for our armies and those of our allies.
The workers are about half women, and the rest very old men or
boys in their middle teens. One of these, showing off to us, comes
tearing up behind pushing a hand truck filled with half-finished
parts. It weighs about ten times what the boy does (he can’t be
fifteen) and, what with the bad lighting, the uneven floors piled
with scrap and rubbish, and his zeal to show his Komsomol patriot-
ism, he succeeds in pushing one of its huge iron wheels over my toe.
They yell angrily at him and I try to explain by gestures with one

44 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

hand — I am holding my foot with the other — that it wasn’t his
fault. The load was too big for him and he couldn’t possibly stop it
in time.

Wages here, including the director’s salary, are exactly what they
were at the other plant — and at most of the others we are to visit.

We go in to the usual banquet at about four in the afternoon.
The usual toast, whereupon there is a pause: a worker brings in
something which looks like a violin case, only inside is a beautifully
polished tommy gun resting on a red velvet lining. Eric A. John-
ston’s name is engraved on it, and we later find that it is a present
from the Young Communists of the Zees plant.

The next day we are herded into our Zeeses and tear across town
to another dingy square, flanked by barracks-like concrete workers’
apartment houses, where flapping Red banners and huge portraits
of Marx, Lenin, Engels, and Stalin announce the entrance to the
ball-bearing works.

It is crammed full of the newest and best American machinery,
but its floors again are cluttered and the lighting bad. However, the
product seems to be a good, precision-made job, although we guess
that by American standards, production per worker must be low.

As we start out we are told that American troops have landed
in Normandy, and the Russians seem as excited as we are — perceptibly
less solemn and poker-faced. In the factory we walk under hastily
erected red banners with lettering to the effect that Russian ball-
bearing workers salute their American conu*ades in the Common
Struggle against the Fascist Beast.

At one point Eric is handed a huge bouquet of lilacs with the
suggestion that he present it to a beautiful twcnty-two-year-old
girl who is pointed out as a Komsomol and one of the most efficient
workers in the plant. Smilingly, she receives it as Soviet news
cameras grind.

At the regular afternoon banquet there are many toasts to Soviet-
Amcrican friendship and the second front. Then Eric tries to find
out something about business competition in the Soviet Union. The
director of the factory insists that there is great competition — par-
ticularly to get raw materials. But who gets the most? The plant
with the highest production record.

We pile back into our cars to be taken to what Kirilov describes
as a rubber factory; actually it produces not rubber but tyres, from
rubber made (usually from alcohol) in the Soviet Union, whose
scientists pioneered in this important field.

Its director, introduced as Vladimir Chesnikov, is a pleasant
young man of thirty-three and under him are about 1,500 workers.
In answer to our questions he explains that he gets the basic monthly

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

salary of 3,000 roubles ( I240 without the usual production bonuses
because the plant isn’t yet operating). They started building it only
in December and began setting the machinery only six weeks ago.
It should be in full operation late in 1944.

But they walk us through to see the machinery. There stands a
Gordon plasdcator which they say was formerly used in the River
Rouge plant — set up and ready for business. On a railway siding in
weadier-beaten crates we see piles of 12,000 tons of American ma-
chinery — a, complete Ford tyre plant crated and sent to Russia last
year.

Back in the director’s office, Eric wants to know what percentage
of their wages Soviet workers give to the war. In America it is
often about 10 per cent, and Chesnikov tells us proudly that in the
Soviet Union workers sometimes give as much as two or three
months’ sajary. It occurs to us that after the Soviet worker has
bought as much food as his ration tickets permit, there is almost
notlung else on which he may spend his money except for an occa-
sional movie.

When we suggest this, the director frowns and assures us that
it is not quite true — that sometimes workers give money when they
have ration tickets left over with which they might have bought
food.

This evening I finally run into my old friend Maurice Hindus,
who has been down in the Ukraine visiting one of the American
air bases. In New York, Maurice lopes around town always without
a hat or overcoat, showing up at parties in a black and white
checkered lumbeijack shirt with an orange tie. He is loping around
Moscow the same way.

Maurice was bom in a Russian village and most Americans who
have read anything of Russia have seen the nation’s progress chron-
icled step by step in his series of books on that village. It is now
still behind the German lines, but just ahead in the path of the
advancing Russian armies. The correspondents have been watching
it closely for the past few weeks. In view of the fine interpretative
job Maurice has done with his village in explaining Russia to Ameri-
cans, will the foreign office allow him to go to the front to accom-
pany the regiment which liberates it? In any country other than
this, such a permission could be had for the asking. Although front
trips here arc almost nonexistent, not a correspondent would protest
it Maurice were allowed to go alone. But no one thinks it can possi-
bly happen.

Maunce, who knows more Russians than any other reporter
in Moscow, tells me that the Russians liked very much Pravda's

46 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

condensation of Eric’s speech ; its sparkle and its frankness. He tells
me of one old Russian friend in his sixties who looked up from
reading it to say, “For years we have made fools of ourselves about
you, and you have made fools of yourselves about us. Let’s hope
that this is all over.”

He also says that today all the Russians are congratulating any
American friend they can find on the opening of the Normandy
front — telephoning each other trying to find vodka to drink toasts.
He says it was, of course, the day’s big story, and all of Praoda's
comment was on the extreme technical difficulty of making a sea
landing on a hostile coast, with no attempt to underrate the dangers
and the hardships. “The people here are very tense,” he says.
“They’ve gone through hell.”

He wants to know about home; he’s been away for months.
“Tell me, Bill, is America going fascist?” he asks very intensely,
and it takes some time to reassure him. It seems all the Russians
want to know. The Soviet newspapers are now beginning to make
the distinction between the democratic and the undemocratic
capitalist countries, but they still think the line is a fine one.

And he says the Russians can’t understand attacks on Russia in
the American and British Press. War and the Working Class which
would be the Comintern publication if there was still a Comintern,
recently reprinted an article from the London Picture Post entitled,
“How to Keep the Russians Out of Europe.” It also reprinted
Senator George’s attack on Roosevelt in which he charged that the
President had failed to get any commitments from Russia. “We
are supposed to be fighting a war together,” the Soviet bi-monthly
comments, “yet these things indicate hidden hostility to Russia.”

And the dozen or so Russian families into whose homes Maurice
can freely go (a record for a foreigner in Moscow) share in these
forebodings.

Tonight we go to a performance of Tschaikovsky’s “Nut Cracker
Ballet” at the Bolshoi Theatre, the Grand Opera house of Moscow.
It is a magnificent old czarist building decorated with a restrained
lavishness rare in Russia under any regime. And the performance
is beautiful beyond anything I have seen on any stage in any coun-
try-dancing, costumes, acting, and scenery are done with sweeping
imagination. These people have a genius for the theatre.

All explanation may be that the theatre is the only thing in the
Soviet union which can boast of an uninterrupted groi^ and
tradition. The Bolsheviks were proud of the b^et and in both
Moscow and Leningrad they kept going continuously all during the
revolution. The Bolsheviks did not Uquidate their actors, stage

REPORT ON tHE RUSSIANS 47

designers, directors, and artists as they did most of the upper classes
in 1917 and in the ensuing Civil War.

“Destroy everytliing first — then build on a new foundation,** was
the battle cry. What I have so far seen of the structure which rises
out of the ruins is often not impressive. The Bolshoi Ballet towers
above everything which the Western stage has produced — unbeliev-
ably lovely.

Only the curtain seems new and even this reflects dignity. It is
a great drop of gold cloth and woven into it, imperceptibly at first,
is an ever-repeated design made up of numerals — 1871-1905-1917 —
the dates of the Paris commune, the abortive Russian revolt, and
finally Lenin*s and Trotsky’s revolution.

Today, a visit to a motor factory which used to make tractor
engines. Both factory and product have been re-designed and the
plant now turns out dive bomber motors largely for the Stormovik
— a 1 700-horsepower job.

Its director is only thirty-four years old and seated next him at the
table is a dark-haired woman of forty who is assistant director, and
who has charge of wages, working conditions, health, and vacations.

He tells us he has 15,000 workers here and that most of them
eat their meals in one building — serving goes on from eleven to
five. The food is cheap and good because the factory owns and
operates two farms. There are permanent operating staffs on each,
but the factory workers rotate to furnish most of the labour. The
factory is proud of the fact that it was heavily bombed in 1941,
collecting more than 250 incendiaries and one looo-pounder, but
work continued during the alarms.

Eric mentions the fact that he also owns factories and the Rus-
sians are immediately curious. How many men does he employ ?

“Two thousand,” he tells them.

“And how are they paid?’*

“Mostly on an hourly wage basis.”

“Why not on a piecework basis?”

“Because our labour unions do not like piecework.” The Russian
staff is puzzled by this. They are too young ever to have known
that after 1917 “piecework” was denounced as a cunning device
to exploit the workers. Later, when the Soviets adopted, with much
ballyhoo, the Stakhanov* system, it was presented to Russians as
a socialist invention, unknown in the capitalist world. But these
young men have grown up behind the veil.

* To be more specific, when in 1931 independent trade unions were abandoned,
piece^v'ork was silenUy introduced into Soviet factories. Later it was combined with

diviabn of labour into the much publicized **Stakhanov system.”

48 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

“How much wages docs the average worker get?”

When the sum is translated into roubles for them, they nod
politely but you can see they suspect he is exaggerating.

Then Johnston goes on to explain, as they listen intently, that
the head of an American factory must think not only of pro-
duction, as they do, but of his s^es organization, his oudets for
distributing what the factory makes, new designs to compete in
efficiency and price with the products of rival companies, and many
other things.

They arc leaning forward now, all down the long table, fascinated
by it and full of questions.

How, they ask him, can an electrical company so small as his com-
pete with a giant like General Electric ? Why is he not crushed ?

Eric explains that we have found out in America that after a
company reaches a certain size, it becomes less efficient. Here they
look at each other, exchange nods of agreement, several of them
even laugh, and then they turn back to Eric.

Then they ask if the trend in America is toward large or small
companies. Eric answers that there are trends in both directions.
Certain operations can be done best by large concerns. But on the
other hand, it’s hard for an executive in New York to keep in
touch with a branch 3,000 miles away in Seattle. So small, inventive
companies, which can adapt themsdves quickly to local needs, get
the edge.

They are all intent on his words, and the young director has
opened his mouth to ask another question, when the NKVD plain-
clothes man, who is always with us, rises and firmly puts a hand on
his shoulder. It seems that now we will go imm^iately out to
inspect the plant.

This had never happened before. Maybe our time schedule was
actually limited. Or maybe the NKVD, which controls what Rus-
sians are allowed to know, didn’t like these spur-of-the-moment, un-
censored explanations of how American business ticks, even firom
so honoured a guest of the Soviet Union as Eric Johnston.

This motor plant seems to be a fairly well set up shop. Across
one room hangs a banner in Russian: “In answer to the success of
our allies the following workers have increased their norms by 350
per cent,” followed by a list of names.

We glance into a workers’ lunch room. The meal consists of a
porridge with kasha (buckwheat), black bread and borsch — ^a rich
meat and beet soup. It looks and smells good.

Beyond this is the foremen’s dining room. They get the same
dishes plus black pressed caviar. Farther on is the engineers’ dining
room. They eat like the foremen with the difference that they may

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 49

have white bread as well as black, a generous portion of butter, and
their caviar is the more expensive, loose, unsalted kind.

Now we proceed to the Erector’s dining room, where I jot down
the menu’s main items; vodka, red wine, white wine, champagne,
caviar, butter, smoked sturgeon, salted cucumbers (which are
delicious), colc^aw, cold veal, salami, smoked beef tongue, and for
dessert, pastry and fine-textured chocolate layer cake.

We learn (not from our Russian hosts) that the caste system
which we have seen in the dining rooms goes all through their fac-
tories. They have developed enormous white-collar clerical and
engineering staffs. But once a man becomes an engineer, he loses
face and prestige if he should slip into a suit of cover-alls, as all
American engineers do, and go down to a factory bench to show the
workers how it should be done or to pick bugs out of the assembly
line.

Until the 1917 Revolution, Russia for a thousand years was a
caste-ridden feudal state. Twenty-five years can no more wipe this
out than it can abolish Russian food habits or Russian verbs. So
this new socialist bureaucracy, raised up out of the proletariat, in-
stinctively stratifies itself into caste.

Although this factory’s floors and lighting are better than most
and its director’s hospitable table far better than any American
corporation president’s private dining room, its production record
is, by American standards, pretty sad. Fifteen thousand workers
equipped with Pratt and Whitney machine tools (also some excellent
German and Swiss ones) turn out only about fifteen motors a day.
This is a thousand man-days per motor. A comparable American
airplane motor is made with less than 200 man-days.

This morning we visit a great cooky, cracker, and cake factory,
officially called the Bolshevik Chocolate Factory (named, of course,
for the Party). They tell us it no longer makes chocolate — practic-
ally all of its cakes and crackers go to the Red Army. They use
50 per cent Russian beet sugar and 50 per cent American Lend-Lease
sugar. In parentheses, the reporters tell me Russians complain that
the American cane sugar, which they can now buy in their grocery^
stores, isn’t as sweet as their own. They say they need two teaspoons
of it to one of Russian beet sugar.

We are bundled into crumpled, slightly soiled and completely
unnecessary white coats and surgeon’s operating caps — unnecessary
because everything is baked at high temperatures and even if we
were Typhoid Marys, no bacilli could survive. But this is part of
food industry fi‘ou-^u in our country as well as thein.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

The workers are also in white — so is everybody except three men
who follow us through. These must be cither top bureaucrats or,
more likely, a new batch of NKVD guaids.

The machinery is all Russian made and the operations mostly
automatic. Great tubs of dough come from the mixers, arc rolled
into sheets, cut into shapes and these move on a belt through the
furnaces like newsprint through a rotary press. The plant looks
good, neither worse nor better than a big American establishment
Uke the National Biscuit Company.

Then the banquet and, as you can guess, mountains of pastry,
especially prepared for us. Only we’re too stuffed to eat much. At a
Chinese banquet anything you can’t cat is sent around to you in
pails the next day. As we leave the Bolshevik Chocolate Factory,
they load three huge cartons into one of the extra Zecses. When
we get to the Mctropolc, we find that according to rigid Bolshevik
protocol, the biggest, at least a cubic yard in size, is marked for
Eric; Joyce’s name is on the middle-sized one; but there is also one
for the ccnsic-wecnsie bear to take to the Metropole.

When I open it in my room, it contains assorted sweet biscuits,
fruit cake, chocolate-covered cherries floating in sweet brandy, and
an enormous cake. I wonder what was in Eric’s big box? Probably
a life-size bust of Lenin done in poundcake with lemon-meringue
hair. I decide to save my cake for a party which is in the offing
among the correspondents and wolf the rest.

FOUR

Tonight Commissar Mikoyan throws a party for us, built around
a showing of a famous Soviet movie called “Volga-Volga.” We
also are privileged to meet Soviet movie stars, a bevy of bouncing
girls in their early forties, who show the effects of their extra ration
cards. Because in the Soviet Union a double chin or an extra roll
of abdominal fat is a mark of caste. Like all actresses, their eyes
seem too far apart when they confront you at cocktail parties. They
greet us glittering with professional charm and gold teeth, and now
and then the contrasting flash of a stainless steel bicuspid.

The well-known actresses were here, women whose names were
headlines in current Soviet films. They were all well-dressed, except
that Soviet standards in this field suggest our pink satin and se^
pearl era.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 5I

I suppose I picked the Lan girl because she was quietly dressed
in a simple black dress. Or maybe because she was so young she
had not attained the dignity of a single gold tooth. Anyway, she
was a completely charming, unaffected child who spoke rather good
but unsure schoolbook English.

We talked for a while over cocktails before the cinema began.
She was most intelligent, and had all the quiet charm of a well-tern
French jeune Jille, or a Viennese mddehen of good family. I decided
that if this was Bolshevik education, I was very much for it.

But there were gulfs. I made some now forgotten reference to the
past, and she said in cautious English, ‘‘Oh, yes. But I have heard
of that. It was just before the First Imperialist War.”

This reference to 1914-1918 wasn’t meant to annoy me. In her
Communist histories it was the only name she had ever heard. She
was most interested in American films; told me gravely how much
she admired our dazzling stars, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford
and Douglas Fairbanks and asked for the names of their recent
pictures. Yet she had also seen Sonja Henie in a recent film specially
shown for Soviet artists to study. She was serious about her own
work, and it appeared she was getting a few bit parts. But appar-
ently the Soviet cinema does not push young actresses forward.
Lana Turners must wait until they have more training before they
can hope for leading roles.

When the movie started she offered to translate, so we went in and
sat down alone except for two men who possibly were not NKVD
and who took the seats immediately behind us. Eric, as guest of
honour, was installed in the centre of the house between two peroxide
actresses, one of whom was the star of the film we were about to see.

Further down Joyce was similarly sandwiched, except that his
partners were less celebrated and therefore younger with fewer
gold teeth. He looked unhappy. It was clear that he was not sure
what could be safely considered the age of discretion in so compli-
cated a land as this, so he kept his hands determinedly folded in
his lap, glancing warily from side to side.

Protocol was satisfied, for I was sitting still further down, with
only Miss Lan, who began dutifuUy translating “Volga-Volga” for
me. It was an extremely slow-moving comedy and on the general
intellectual level of a Minsky burlesque thoroughly cleaned by the
L^on of Decency. The scenes were tedious and the technique was
bad. There was, for instance, a short bit in which a comedian plays
a tune with a knife and fork on bottles and glasses of different
sizes. Only here nobody had bothered to co-ordinate the bottle sizes
with the sound track, thus shattering the illusion of reality. But the
Russians never noticed it.

5 ®

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

I bcffan to think, watching this jerky business, what a treat it
would be for this girl to see an American film — of recent vintage.
Then I remember^ that the ambassador showed one each week to
the American colony at Spaso House. So I asked her.

But, of course, she would like to see a new American film. So
very much.

I^ursday, then? And would she like me to send a car to bring
her to the American Embassy?

An embassy? She hesitates. Perhaps it would be possible.

She is busy on Thursday?

No, she is not busy. But she does not know if it would be possible.

But if I put in a request to the proper authorities ?

Yes, she says slowly, nodding. If I did that, it would then perhaps
be possible.

I know that it can be arranged that a foreigner may take a
Russian girl to the movies, if the matter is taken up through proper
official channels.

But before Thursday comes, I have decided against it, and not
because I have forgotten Miss Lan. It occurs to me that something
I write might displease them, and the matter of who told me might
arise. She is a charming and attractive child, and so long as we
talk sitting in front of &e two men in blue serge suits, nothing
could ever be brought up to mar that career for which she is working
so earnestly. So good luck, Miss Lan; may fame come to you
before gold teeth, and you understand now what happened to
Thursday.

Slowly I am beginning to understand this place and its people.
Suppose you had been born and spent all your life in a moderately
well run penitentiary, which kept you working hard and provided a
bunk to sleep in, three daily meals and enough clothes to keep you
warm.

Suppose the walls were covered with posters explaining that free-
dom and justice could only be found within its bars, that outside
was only disorder, strikes, uncertainty, unemployment, and ex-
ploitation of workers, while this place was being run only for your
benefit.

Suppose it was explained that the warden and the guards were
there largely to protect you Grom the malevolent outside world.

Needless to say, if anyone tried to release you or menaced you
with a parole, you would fight like a tiger.

There is, however, one marked difference between inmates of the
Soviet Union and of the Kansas State penitentiary at Lansing, where
I have often visited an old friend. Fo^ and clodiing in boA places

UPORT OK THE RXTSSIANS 53

are about the same, maybe a little better in Lansing. But should my
Kansas friend decide that his penitentiary was not well run, and
express the hope that there might be a change of wardens, he would
run no danger of being shot were he overheard by a stool pigeon.
I concede, however, that in Russia a talented inmate can work him-
self up to be warden, which would be impossible in Lansing.

Public opinion here is handled with the consummate slull of an
artist on a giant concert organ, whose hands run deftly over many
keys to produce one marching series of harmonies.

For instance, the Russian people were deliriously happy over the
news of the Teheran conference. At last Stalin, Churchill, and
Roosevelt had sat down together. Finally, Soviet Russia had
powerful Allies she could trust ! No longer was she the pariah nation
of the world.

The bureaucracy was equally pleased but not with this wave of
internationalism and good feeling toward the Western world. As
experts in the field of the management of public sentiment, they
distrust any public emotion, which they do not instigate, or which
threatens to get beyond their control. Suppose, for instance, that
the Soviet Union might presently find good reason to change its
attitude toward its current Allies?

They, therefore, printed in Pravda a little story reputedly cabled
from Pravda^ Cairo correspondent (although no such story passed
Cairo’s censors) to the effect that the British were negotiating with
high German officials in neutral territory for a separate peace. Of
course, the story was not broadcast in any of the numerous radio
news programmes from Moscow to the outside world (there are no
personal radio sets in the Soviet Union) because it was needed
purely for domestic consumption.

The story caused an indignant explosion of denials in the Western
world, some of which the government complacently printed in
Pravda when pressure was brought to bear.

But the desired effect on Russian public opinion had already been
achieved. Inter-Allied good will was dampened down, to the point
where public opinion could easily be switched, should this need
arise.

They did not then see such a need, nor, as I write this, do they
see it now. But by such stratagems they keep freedom of action to
move either way with the complete bacldng of their people.

Russian newspapers and newsreels carry only small amounts of
news about the outside world, and never anything which might
arouse internal discontent with the Party’s rule or the Soviet Union’s
standard of living. Now and thoi, of cowse, there is a slight mis«
calculation. For instance, Soviet newsreels, which specudize in

54 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

strikes or disorders in the Western countries, ran many feet showing
the Detroit race riots, including a vivid close-up of a cop beating a
young Negro. The effect on the Soviet audience, according to
American correspondents who were there, was electric. Some
Russians even stood up. “Look” — they cri^ — “at that wonderful
pair of shoes the Negro is wearing !”

Almost never do the authorities admit any book or movie which
would give a straightforward picture of American life and the
average American living standard. It is true that Soviet intellectuals
have read and appreciate the artistry of The Grapes of Wrath, But,
released for mass circulation as a movie, it is l^und to bewilder
the average citizen of the Soviet Union. The Joad family would
not be pitied for their clothing, which except for its American cut,
would be indistinguishable in a Moscow crowd.

But here is a family which, not being content with its circum-
stances, leaves without obtaining permission and wanders a thousand
miles or so without a travel permit in search of a better job. Where
is the NKVD? Why aren’t they stopped? Each of these offences
is worth a five-year sentence. True, the grandmother dies on the
way and obviously malnutrition contributed, but this is no rarity
in the Soviet Union, nor is her funeral less ceremonious nor her
grave more stark than those in most Soviet cemeteries.

Above all, where did they get the car? Since it is shabby, of
course, it didn’t come from the Kremlin motor pool, but the fact
that it will run at all proves it must have belonged to an important
factory foreman for use on official business only.

These curious, insubordinate malcontents would arouse little sym-
pathy in the Soviet Union, and the only possible happy ending
would be to have one of the younger boys join the Komsomols
out in California, loyally squeal on the whole disruptive tribe,
whereupon the NKVD would give chase and after exciting
sequences, overtake and liquidate them at the base of a statue
of Stalin.

What with all these difficulties, few American films are shown
in Moscow and those are picked with the greatest care. The Ameri-
can films best known arc Chaplin’s “Gold Rush” and “The Dicta-
tor,” a Sonja Henie skating picture and Deanna Durbin’s “One
Hundred Men and a Girl,” after the Russian sub-titles were written
in to bring out a heavy cla^-exploitation angle.

When I was in Moscow, the most popular foreign pictures were
“Jungle” and “Thief of Bagdad.” Both were heavily attended for
they are done with the usu^ Hollywood skill. But since the scene
q£ one is a Hindu village and the other is medieval Bagdad, neither
portrayed normal life in the Western world and so were safe.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 55

I did sec, however, one excellent Russian picture, and did not
need the language to understand and be moved by it. The story
concerned a green cadet, very much on his good behaviour, who
arrives with his kit bag to join a veteran fighter squadron. He is
at first genially hazed by the rest, gradually gets experience, shows
his mettle and is slowly accepted. It depicted some highly comed-up
and improbable shots of air fights, but these flights of fancy were
no more distorted than the ones dreamed up in Hollywood swivel
chairs.

For the most part, it was an honest, human document, telling
the story of a Soviet fighter squadron. It could have been an Ameri-
can, British, or German story.

All nations tend to play up their own battle exploits and to
neglect their Allies, and America is, in this respect, a frequent
offender. But certainly Red Army advances are decently covered in
stories, maps, and pictures both in American newspapers and news-
reels.

The Soviet Union, by contrast, almost never shows pictures of
foreign battle fronts in its popular theatres. At the time of the
Anglo-American landings in Normandy, we rushed the first films
to Moscow. They were dramatic pictures of the great fleet moving
into position, of American and British boys being ripped by machine-
gun fire from the cliffs and on the beaches.

They were shown to the intelligentsia and to high Red Army
officers, who might have a technical interest in how we handle
landing operations, but they were not released to the general public.

Similarly, Russian newsreels have shown almost nothing of the
Libyan desert campaign, the North African landings, the Tunisian,
Sicilian, and Italian campaigns. Nor of the war at sea in either the
Pacific or Atlantic. These campaigns have been dismissed with a
few lines in Pravda or Izvestia.

As a result, the average Russian firmly and logically believes that
his government has until recently borne, not most of the war burden,
but all of it. And it is convenient for Soviet leaders that he should
continue to believe this.

From time to time Stalin makes statements which are both realistic
and generous to his Allies. Rather recently, he predicted that Soviet
soil would soon be cleared of the invader and the armies could
then proceed to follow the Fascist beast and crush him in his lair,
adding that this would not be possible without the combined efforts
of all the Allies.

This was, of course, printed in Pravda but the average reader,
saturated with news of the Red Army, overburdened with personal
problems, and ignorant of the extent of Anglo-American sea, air,

56 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

and land effort^ probably dismissed it as the kind of perfunctory
gesture which all statesmen occasionally make.

Today another thundering big dinner at Spiridonovka to which
Eric, Joyce, and I are asked but this time only as humble spectators,
for it is given by Molotov and the guests of honour are the British
and American ambassadors to celebrate the anniversary of our aid
agreement with England.

Any artist could draw Molotov with a ruler — a square body on
short legs, square head, jaw, nose, and eyes, and there he stands.
This square face is as devoid of expression as an Indian chief’s.

Litvinov is also present — a keen face, thinning, sandy hair — intel-
ligent, alert — a benign volcano. The reporters say he is the only
Kremlin resident who is accessible. ‘He will give any of the more
serious ones an hour or so, explaining Soviet policy and problems —
provided, of course, they don’t bother him too often.

Here is also my friend, the fox-faced Russian who sat next to me
at the Mikoyan dinner, now in full-dress Foreign Office uniform.
He grins, “Ah, Mr. White — and it is now the second front — come at
last— yes?”

“For you the second — for us the eighth.”

“That I remember well. But anyway, we drink to it — ^yes?”

The dinner is like Mikoyan’s, even to the climactic suclung pig —
or rather his cousin, similarly shaved and boiled. I am next to
another Foreign Office boy (Russians apparently keep their wives
and daughters away from ravening capitalist wolves) and as we sit
down I exclaim in mock dismay at the array of forks and spoons,
saying I hardly know which to pick up first.

My neighbour takes this with the utmost seriousness. “In the
Soviet Union,” he explains ponderously, “we use the English system
— using first those on the outside,” and gives me a demonstration.

They are tremendously formal people — not because they are
Ciommunists but because they are Russians. They may be innocent
of the use of toilet paper, but when they throw an official shebang,
everything must be just so, from oyster forks to medals. No wonder
they were offended when Winston Churchill, visiting Moscow
during the raids, turned up at Stalin’s dinner in his siren suit. A
czarist grand duke might have understood, but not these earnest
Socialists. As Russians they must be spectacularly lavish; as
Communists they must worry about the forks.

In the middle of the good-will toasts, Molotov breaks a big piece
of news; tells us that today they are launching an offensive to
co-ordinate with our Anglo-American landing in Normandy.

An Allied general gets briskly to his feet with another toast,

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 57

expressing his gratitude for this Russian offensive, which, he says,
was “specifically promised at the Teheran conference.”

Check, and double check. But this to me was also news.

In the major drive which presently followed toward Warsaw
and East Prussia, no one can say they did not keep faith — scraping
their man-power barrel, throwing war-cripples, semi-invalids, and
boys into the line. Their sacrifices from the standpoint of man power
have been ghastly. Back of the front you see no young men who
aren’t either in uniform or limping with a wound, except the few
who are in high administrative jobs. And you see absolutely no men
between sixteen and forty at the factory benches.

Following the Molotov dinner, we told the correspondents of the
announced attack, since it had already been launched and, of course,
they filed the story. It was then stopped in censorship. Nobody
questioned its truth, but the censors pointed out it had not yet
appeared in Pravda. It is a rule of Russian censorship that nothing
is officially true which has not been printed in a Russian paper, so
the American reporter who decides he will scoop the Russian press
is wasting his time. Pravda got around to printing the news of the
offensive three days later.

Tonight we are taken to the Hermitage, which consists of several
theatres grouped around a beautiful park. There arc at least two
movies and a theatre for operettas. This drama form has languished
in the United States, after having become the mother of our musical
comedy.

• It is not so elaborate or so serious as an opera, but its comedy
plot is more detailed and carefully worked out. It is usually, but
not always, a costume drama; the plot of this particular one was
laid in the times of Peter the Great and had no direct connection
with Communist propaganda except that it was a version of the
Cinderella story and the whole Communist effort is an attempt to
make all the Cinderella stories come true; to wave a magic wand
over the pumpkin and the mice and transform them into the crystal
coach and the prancing horses.

In this particular tale Czar Peter orders a young nobleman to
Paris to study navigation so that he may be commissioned captain
of a naval ship. But the young nobleman is too stupid to learn, so
he orders one of his handsome young serfr to take his examinations
and spends all his time playing around Paris.

On his return (you’ve guessed it) his ignorance is unmasked, and
the handsome young serf is not only made captain of the ship, but
is allowed to many the nobleman’s beautiful fianc^, who already
loves him.

58 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

A Standard character in the tradition of the American stage is
the comic Englishman. As far back as colonial times, the rugged
backwoodsmen laughed at his accent, his fancy clothes, and elaborate
manners. His equivalent on the Russian stage is the comic French-
man, or more often the Russian who returns from France with
Parisian clothes and phrases.

As a comic character, he did not die with the Revolution, and
Bolshevik Russians roar with laughter and slap their sides at him,
for now he represents all Soviet citizens who have spent any time
abroad.

Between acts we want to stroll in the park to mingle with the
fascinating crowd. But this is impossible; for in Russia a guest must
be entertained. So we are dragged across the park where the usual
banquet is waiting. We can hardly nibble — we are so sick of vodka
that it smells like castor oil.

Again, after the last act, we are marched practically under guard
to the dining room, our hosts pushing a path through the festoons
of reasonably pretty girls, who watch us with friendly curiosity.

In the banquet room we find the stars of the cast are waiting to
greet us. The In tourist steward, who has become to us a sinister
figure, is pulling corks from champagne bottles, only what we
really want is a glass of warm milk and bed.

But presently in comes a commanding figure, the actor who
played Peter the Great. He bows ceremoniously, sits down at the
head of the table and calls for vodka.

‘My God,’* says Joyce. “Look !”

Peter has taken the bottle from the steward and is filling, not the
tiny vodka glass, but a full-sized water tumbler.

“Look !*’ says Joyce. “Hey, Eric, look ! He’s going to drink it —
why, he’s already drunk it !”

Joyce is getting a litde hysterical and Peter, noticing it, gives us
a grave but friendly stare.

“Eric, he’s poured another.”

When Peter drank, he tilted his head but his Adam’s apple did
not move. It was like pouring down a drain.

“ Watch out, there he goes again — some of these Russians ought to
stop him — What a man ! That’s his third.”

“How many is that?”

“Three of them!” said Joyce, “I counted. Water glasses full.
Peter’s not a man, he’s a tank. He’s a gasoline truck. Why, I bet
he’s got ‘ Esso ’ stencilled on his ribs ! ” and Joyce went off into gales.

“If we wait a few minutes until it begins to take hold, maybe
wc’Il find out.”

The gigantic actor was staring solemnly at Eric. He began talking

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 59

with the interpreter. She was an Intourist girl named Eugenie —
Genic for short, which Eric instantly had made into Jennie.

“He says,” she translated, “that he enjoyed very much Mr.
Johnston’s speech in Pravda.^*

Eric nodded.

“He says,” translated Jennie, “that being an artist, he had no
knowledge of politics and, of course, he could not endorse any
political implications the speech may have had — that would be for
others to decide.”

“Guess Peter likes his job,” said Joyce. “Wants to stay where
he is.”

“He refers only to the style,” continued Jennie, “and the way
in which it was said. This, he wants to assure you, he enjoyed very
much.”

“You liked the operetta?” inquired Kirilov.

“Very much, indeed,” we said, “ and particularly,” here we bowed
to the prima donna, “the songs.”

“In America you have also good songs,” said Kirilov. “When I
am in New York I have heard.”

“We have a good song about Jennie,” said Eric resourcefully.
“A new song from a movie called ‘Lady in the Dark.’ About a girl
who couldn’t make up her mind. She was called Jennie like you.”

“But if you would only sing it,” said Jennie. “I would like so
much to hear.”

“Then I will,” he said, and the amazing part of it was that he
did. He had seen the picture only once when we were in Cairo.
But he seemed as sure of the tune and words as the girl in the
movie. He samg it, copying her feminine intonation and gestures.

“But,” exclaimed the prima donna, “ Mr. Johnston is not only a
man of business — he is a true artist.”

Thus spurred on, Eric launched into the other stanzas with even
more vivacity. Towards the end, Joyce, for no reason that I could
then see, called out loudly, “Look out, Eric !” Only when he fin-
ished I ^d see. Peter towered above us staring across the table at
Eric. He stalked around the table, eyes glued to Eric, declaiming
stentoriously in Russian.

“Look out, boy,” said Joyce, “he’s after you. But whatever he’s
going to do to you, you sure asked for it ! ”

“He says,” Jennie translated, “that he greets Mr. Johnston, not
only as an important man of business — but also a fellow artist. He
salutes him.”

We hardly listened, for Peter, taking Eric’s face firmly between
the palms of his massive hands, tilted it upward. And, then, bending
over, kissed him. Although it was full on the mouth, it was brief

60 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

Then he let Eric drop, turned solemnly, and said something to
the interpreter.

“He says,“ Jennie translated, “that not only he salutes you, but
the whole Soviet Union — **

“No — no — “ said Eric, wiping his mouth on his napkin. “Tell
him, never mind about anything else. Tell him he represents the
whole Soviet Union.’* He laid the napkin down on the table and
rose, very serious.

“Now, fellows — Bill, Joyce — ^it’s late, and we have a full schedule
tomorrow, and so, Kirilov, I think maybe we’d better be going
now. And, Jennie, you tell these people how very nice their operetta
was. Tell them we liked that very much. Tell them we don’t have
anything quite like it in America.’’

“Tomorrow,” says Kirilov, “we go for ride in private steamboat
down to Volga River and return.” He stops. “There will” — and
here his large sleepy eyes seem to be doing their best to gleam —
“be girls.”

Even our Russian hosts realize that after our busy schedule, we
need a rest. Our idea of a programme for this would be a milk toast
diet. Theirs, of course, wins and differs slightly. It is a trip by boat
down the famous canal connecting Moscow with the Volga River.
Some correspondents are also invited.

Around noon we are driven to the landing place. Here is a
huge and almost completely deserted station about the size of the
Kansas City or the Cleveland Union Terminals. Its architecture is
pretentious. It is over-omamented and built with shoddy materials.

It towers dramatically above the canal, which is reached by a
preposterously wide flight of steps — I would guess fifty of them —
which are dominated by a titanic statue of Stalin. At the bottom is
our boat, a streamlined version of a Mississippi River steamer, better
than anything I have seen in America.*

To entertain us they have brought three of the plump operetta
artistes. They were better by candlelight. Now we see a few double
chins we had overlooked. They arrive in very formal dresses, but soon
change, and in the afternoon their billowing Russian busts are encased
in pastel sweaters. It’s like date night at the Old Ladies’ Home.
Yet everybody is trying pathetically hard to show us a good time.

I go down to my cabin. Eric has a suite, which occupies most
of one side of the boat. Joyce is similarly ensconced near by. I
have a spacious sitting room complete with sofa, writing desk, pen,
ink, stationery, and private sun deck. In my bedroom are twin beds

* Until I MW our newest and much larger Misnssippi river boats, tied up at St Louis,
after this book had gone to the printer.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 6l

with yellow silk spreads. It just happens that there is neither toilet
nor washbasin, which, except for the bed, are the only things I
really need.

The paddles are churning — through the new, white silk curtains
I see the bank moving, so I go on deck. On one of the long padded
wicker divans, Johnston is ^ready stretched out, shirtlcss for a sun
bath. Two sailors, under Kirilov’s supervision, come trundling out
a radio-phonograph trailing a cable. This is set up in the middle of
the deck.

“Now,” says Kirilov, “we will have American music.” Where-
upon its loud-speaker is aimed at Eric and it begins to jJay, “Oh,
Johnny ! Oh, Johnny ! How you can love ! ” An excited male voice
begins to sing the words breathlessly, as though he had first been
chased around the block.

I walk around to the bow. The banks sliding by might be illustra-
tions of a fairy tale. There are tall birch forests and if it were
night, I am sure a distant light would appear and walking toward it
we would find the old witch and her house of stick candy.

Now and then we pass a clearing and a village of logs, with
those beautifully carved doors and window frames characteristic of
Old Russia. Occasionally naked girl swimmers duck down as we
go by.

Here and there great piles of corded wood are stacked on the
banks. They tell me this is winter fuel for Moscow but only because
of the war; normally, Moscow burns coal from the Don Basin, but
now the Germans have Donbas. And what coal there is goes where
it’s most needed.

This canal probably isn’t quite as wide as the Panama, but two
of these great steamers can pass. About every fifteen or twenty miles
there is a loading station almost as big as the one where we came
aboard — but no towns are in sight. At each station a mammoth
metal statue of either Lenin or Stalin commands the canal. They
hold the same poses here and throughout the Soviet Union. Stalin,
in his heavy overcoat and cap, strides along, swinging his arms;
Lenin always gesticulates with arms outstretched.

How was the canal built, I ask. By 3,000,000 political prisoners,
working with picks and shovels, and it took them only a little over
two years.

I want to ask what exactly they were accused of and how many
died in the building, but somehow I don’t.

We float for a while through soft birch forest and sure enough,
another statue looms ahead. For us they disfigiure the Russian land-
scap>e but I suppose we are no more annoyed than Russians would
be at the billboards which line our highways. However, the artists

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

who paint our cigarette ads are more skilful than the monumental
masons who designed these cigar-store Indians.

They arc almost as hideous as our political advertisements which
spring up every two years — “Vote for ‘Honest Joe Doaks’ — Candi-
aatc for City Treasurer — the People’s Friend.”

I remember a Kansas friend who was for many years a success-
ful candidate for a county office. Tiring of nailing up posters every
two years, he devised carefully framed pictures, which he hoped
would stay up permanently. He would have leapt at the idea of iron
statues of himself at every crossroad !

Here there arc no election contests, and only one political party
which constantly sells its candidate to the people. At last, as per-
manent political outdoor advertising, the striding statues suddenly
make sense.

When Eric arises, three hours of that pale arctic sun have given
him a slight rose petal pink and it is time to dress for dinner. I have
already seen our Intourist steward marshalling the wine glasses.

One of the correspondents approaches.

“Bill,” he says, “ I want to tell you. Very curious thing happened.
You know I’ve been intending to collect some anecdotes about
Stalin over here— just the kind of little funny stories that people
back home tell about Roosevelt or Dewey or Willkie — stories that
bring out their characteristics and show what kind of guys they arc.

“Well, I asked those artists if they could tell me any stories
about Stalin. So I told them we Americans had a lot of stories
about Roosevelt, and the British a lot of funny stories about
Churchill, and I wanted them to tell me the funny stories the Rus-
sians told about Stalin. When they finally got the idea, they seemed
shocked. Said there weren’t any. Because Stalin, they said, was a
great man. So, x)f course, there weren’t any funny stories about
him. Never had been. Now what do you think of that?”

I think he was only partly right. I think there once were funny
stories about Stalin, and that this pick and shovel canal was dug by
those who made the mistake of telling them to the wrong people.

We can only nibble dinner but the Russians cat heartily. And
between courses the Sweater Girls, now changed to evening dresses,
oblige us with a few vocal numbers.

When we go on deck it is dark. We arc motionless in a lock while
water pours in to change our level. The long arctic sunset is just
dying away but I can still see the gigantic outline of a striding Stalin
on the bank.

One of the British correspondents who lives up on the fifth floor
of the Metropole invites me and half a dozen other correspondents

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 63

Up lor a party, and I take as a contribution my Bolshevik factory
cake.

The party starts about lo o’clock with sandwiches and black
coffee, brewed over an electric stove — and my cake. The host has
persuaded the Metropole maid, an old lady of seventy named Nina,
who has looked after him for several years, to serve and wash dishes
afterwards in his bathroom. At about ten-thirty a couple of Russian
girls arrive. One is touching thirty, with the usual sallow, pimply
Moscow skin and shabby clothing. The other is about twenty-four
and the prettiest Russian girl I have seen. She has a black dress
with white collar and cuffs, and white bobby socks. But the amaz-
ing thing is not where she got the silk dress, but how in Moscow
she had found enough vitamins to clear her skin.

Someone puts a record on the portable, we roll back the rug, and
our host calls for Nina to bring cake plates and coffee cups for
the girls. Nina eyes them with intense disapproval, shoves the plates
into their hands and goes out banging the door. It shakes the room.

Our host laughs.

“She’s adopted me. Any Russian girl who comes in here, Nina is
sure is a tart. When, now and then, one of them does spend the
night, Nina puts the picture of my wife and kids where it’s the first
thing ril see when I wake up.”

And now for a note on sex in Russia. In the outside world Russians
have an awe-inspiring reputation for promiscuity. It is unfounded.
It grew up in the days when the Bolshevik Party denounced fidelity
as a bourgeois fetish and proclaimed the new freedom in these
matters, along with legalized abortion and post-card divorce. But
even in those days the reputation was unfounded, for although divorce
could be had for the asking (and some individuals got dozens), the
rate for Russia as a whole was less than the American divorce rate.
The average Russian seemed reasonably content with one wife.

Now divorce is difficult and abortion illegal in Russia and promis-
cuity politically unfashionable. Yet life seems to go on at about the
same cadence that it always did. One gathers that these matters
are governed by deep instinct and arc little affected by the official
preachings of church or state, and that this is true not only of Russia,
but for the rest of the world as well.

Having said this, I must add that the Moscow foreign colony is
definitely underprivileged in this field. In part this is due to matters
of taste, for the legendary Russian beauty turns out to be mythical
in Moscow ; at least she does not exist in the absence of adequate
amounts of fresh fruit and tomatoes. The women arc drab, sallow,
and tired, and on the street dismally unattractive.

There is among the Moscow foreign colony the story of the

64 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

young consular secretary who one day comes to work and remarks,
“By the way, you should have seen the girl in the subway this
morning. Lovely looking kid. I don’t think she was just looking at
my clothes. Tomorrow morning I’m going to take the same train.”

At this point liis chief rises, puts a hand on his shoulder and says
in a fatherly way, “ My boy, you’ve been here too long. We’ll have
to get you out for a vacation.”

“This morning,” says Kirilov, as we climb into the waiting
Zeescs, “we visit fur factory.” In his bright lexicon, a factory is
any place where something is produced. This one turns out to be
a collective mink farm, a few kilometres out of Moscow. It was
once a village. The houses still stand along the mud street. The
biggest, which probably belonged to a thrifty kulak who was
liquidated in the thirties, is now the administration building. The
communal kitchen and dining room is in the second biggest house.
A nursery school is in a third.

In the director’s room is the usual picture of Stalin, the usual
carved furniture. The director, however, is a lean, gentle farmer.
His face and neck are weather-beaten. So are his hands. So are
the faces and hands of his assistants. These are rugged, intelligent
farmers such as you might find in the Farm Bureau Office of Lyon
County, Kansas.

This director tells us he is thirty-six; like all farmers, he looks ten
years older. Then he gives us some statistics. His collective has
1,200 hectares (hectare = 2j acres), of which animal cages occupy
about forty. It raises not only minks, but silver foxes, sables and
martins. Mink pelts, he tells us, bring about $12 each, and at a
wholesale price of about $800, you can buy the seventy necessary
for a coat, which will retail at about $2,500. It takes about sixty-
five sable skins to make a coat, and these pelts are sold at prices
ranging from $50 to $600 each. He tells us that only one or two
sables are born in a litter and it sometimes takes a hunter two
weeks to find and kill a single animal. Wild sable pelts sometimes
bring $500 each. The darkest and silkiest made up into a coat bring
as high as $45,000.

And where are the skins from this farm sold? Practically all of
them in New York. In normal times, also London and Paris. Only
a very few in the Soviet Union.

I get a brief attack of social conscience. Here this half-starved
nation is forced to put skilled farmers to raising useless animals for
the cream of the foreign luxury market so that Russia may buy
useful machines.

We now are taken for a walk among the cages. I know nothing

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 65

about mink farms, but this one is orderly and clean, and the sturdy
farmers seem to luiow their business thoroughly. The supervisors,
both men and women, are “ agronomes.** That is, they have degrees
from agricultural schools in veterinary science.

A girl wearing heavy canvas gloves steps into a cage, picks up
one of the squirrel-like minks. It squeals, hisses, and bites viciously —
its eyes red with hatred of us and of its destiny.

We pass the nursery school, and I peek into its curtained win-
dows. It is nearly three o’clock, which is rest-time for five-year-
olds the world over and these clean, well-fed children are sleeping
soundly in their tiny beds. On the rack near the basin is a peg for
wash cloths, and over each the child’s name. It looks very like the
nursery school our daughter goes to in New York. But on the wall
there is a huge picture of Stalin, for once smiling and holding a
child in his arms. Political education begins early here.

The white-coated Intourist steward has by magic arrived in the
dining room and is opening his wine bottles on the long farm table.
I wonder what happens to all this opened wine. We drink so little,
and it will spoil quickly.

The meal is different, for he has apparently supplied only wine,
caviar, and dessert. The other courses come from the farm itself
and are delicious — good country soup, cabbage, roast duckling,
roast pork, and salted cucumbers, all washed down with beer.
Honest, decently cooked food. As refreshing as a long drink of well-
water on a hot day. Above all, we are with farmers and I feel as
though I am back home.

The director’s wife, a serious, weather-beaten farm woman who
has a college degree, is telling us through the interpreter about the
problems of raising the animals.

Eric, in high spirits, asks if they have any skunks.

The answer, when it comes, is no.

“Tell them that when we don’t like someone in America, we
caU them a skunk !”

This is translated and the farmers nod gravely.

says the director, which in Russian means, “Yes, yes.”
Only sometimes the phrase strikes the American car as comic.

Eric looks around the table with his contagious smije.
he says, mimicking a baby. And then, pointing his finger around
the table, he says “da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da” as though it were a
tommy gun mowing them down. This American sense of humour
somewhat breaks down their Russian gravity.

At this point one of the waitresses — they are all healthy, big-
bosomed, barefooted farm girls — brings a bouquet of field flowers
fix>m the collective’s garden, which is presented to Eric.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

He rises superbly to the occasion. Getting up from his seat, he
presents it to the director’s wife with a bow. She also rises.

“And tell her,” says Eric, with his contagious smile around the
table, “that in America it is the custom to kiss the wife of the
director.”

But she draws away.

“She says,” translates Jennie, “that this is not a Russian custom.”

“Tell her that it is an American custom.”

The weather-beaten woman said something slowly and firmly in
Russian.

“She says,” Jennie translated, “that we are not now in America.”

In the end, however, Eric Johnston won. For when we went out-
side to have our pictures taken, he seized an opportunity, in front
of the Russian movie camera, to kiss the director’s wife lightly and
playfully on the brow. This is a mutually educational tour.

Coming hard on the heels of this experience is a visit to what
Kirilov calls a meat factory, which is, however, not a stock farm
but a packing house. Since it is food, we are again garbed in
rumpled, slightly soiled white. It differs little from an American
paclung house, but they show us something which they say is a
Soviet invention. The cow, instead of being slugged with a hammer,
is struck just at the base of the skull with a javelin, tipped by an
electrically charged needle. This stuns but does not lull. Her heart
continues to pump out blood after her throat is cut and while, sus-
pended by the horns, she moves down the dis-assembly line to be
skinned.

I say “she” advisedly for Soviet beef consists almost entirely of
worn-out old milk cows, calves, or an occasional bull whose romantic
fires have burned to embers. Almost no cattle are raised to maturity
purely as beef. Here it is the end product of the dairy business,
as in fact it is over most of Europe.

In the Soviet Union tenderness makes little difference since, due
to the lack of refrigeration, almost all red meat is prepared as
smoked sausage. During our entire stay in the country, only twice
were we offered steak.

But at the banquet which ends the packing house visit, the table
is piled high with countless kinds of sausage. I am stuffed like a
Christmas goose with Soviet food. It would be delicious if I were
even vaguely hungry.

As we leave, three enormous cartons arc hoisted into the car
and I have visions of sausage feasts at the Metropolc. Each box
must contain the equivalent of a year’s meat ration for a Russian. If
I distribute them among the correspondents, beautiful Russian girls

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 6 j

will come flocking to their parties from as far as Leningrad, thus
contributing to the peace and dignity of the resident Foreign Press.
However, this is not to be, for Eric and Joyce, remembering the
faithful servants who wait on them, distribute all three boxes among
the Russian servants who work at the embassy.

My travelling companions have in them the seeds of true greatness
— they are ever mindful of the humble.

We were surprised at this plant to find that the basic wage was
only 500 roubles a month — instead of the customary 750. However,
the fact presently comes out that workers who overfulfil their
norms (almost all of them do) get an extra dividend, not in money
but in meat, which is infinitely more important.

I see now it was a mistake for me to take a day off, staying at the
Metropole to talk to the correspondents, for Joyce and Eric return
wide-eyed from today’s trip. They visited what I suppose Kirilov
must have called a penis factory. In point of fact, it was a large
Russian military hospital, a section of which is devoted to the repair
of genital wounds. They have here developed a surgical technique to
supply penises for men who have had theirs blown away in battle.

The operation* starts with a fold of skin from the abdomen, one
end of which is detached and transplanted below. When circulation
is re-established, it is moved and the other end is transplanted. All
of this being repeated until it is in a position where it can be sewed
into place for the exterioi of a penis. There follow a series of delicate
operations to re-establish the functions of the organ.

When this is healed, the soldier is released, with orders to report
back in six weeks. Sometimes he is not satisfied, and they then
make adjustments.

Usually, however, he returns smiling and is taken into a ward full
of genital cases just arrived from the front — depressed youngsters
often on the verge of suicide. He gives an account of his holiday,
and they sit up wide-eyed with new hope.

Genital wounds are relatively rare in war, as a man instinctively
protects this area, even more carefully than he does his eyes. There
could be no better measurement of the astounding casualties the
Soviet Union has suffered than the large number of cases which
have gone through this treatment. Surgery can be learned only from
practice, and the senseless slaughter of war has given these Soviet
doctors so many thousands of these rare cases that in this operation
they surpass the world.

* This operation is brilliantly described for American doctors by the famous Soviet
surgeon A. P. Frumkin in his article ** Reconstruction of the Male Genitalia,” in the

October, 1944, issue of the American Review of Soviet Medicine,

R£PORT ON THE RUMIANS

Such injuries are rare in the tank corps and uncommon in the
air force. They are most frequently found in the infantry, where
masses of men must leave protection to rush enemy positions. The
backbone of any army is its infantry, but this is especially true of
the Red Army.

Although visiting Soviet doctors have free access to Allied hos-
pitals on the Western fronts, it is most difficult for Allied medical
observers to visit Soviet field hospitals. This is not entirely because
of the traditional Russian suspicion of foreigners. They are a proud
people, and conceal their weaknesses. Their general standard of
medical care cannot compare with that of the Western countries.
They spend freely on the more spectacular branches of medical
research,* but under this top crust, the average Russian doctor has
less training than a good American nurse. So when permission to
visit a Russian hospital is refused by the Soviet method of delay
and postponement, the real reason often is that the Russians know
the foreigner would learn, nothing new except the meagreness of
their equipment. For the general poverty of the country extends to
medicine. Yet even though Soviet doctors have less training than
American doctors, their people probably get better medical care
than do many Americans in the lower income groups, who cannot
afford good doctors and yet are too proud to go to charity clinics.
And Soviet medical training has made great strides in recent years.

Jennie and I (she is Johnston’s interpreter and therefore con-
stantly with us) arc beginning to have a number of quiet jokes
together. She is a discerning girl with a good sense of humour. I
early confessed to her my liking for the Finns and ever after, when
they came up in the conversation, she would remark disdainfully,
“Towr friends,” So I now humbly refer to them only as “those
four-headed Fascist beasts.”

She is pushing thirty and was born in Leningrad, which is
Russia’s centre of culture much as Boston was America’s in the
nineteenth century. She came from a comfortable middle-class
family, probably learned French and German at home as a child,

• Before going to Russia I iiad read in popular American magazines accounts of the
experiments of the Soviet scientist Burdenko in removing and preserving live nerves to
be used in replacing nerves destroyed in parai>zcd limbs.

After arriving in Moscow 1 was told that when additional information on this process
was asked, the Russians had replied that it was a military secret. This 1 chronicled in
my book, and it appeared in the condensation published in the Rtader's Digut.

Since then I find that the Soviet government has given to American medical journals
and schools what seems to me ample information on the nerve grafting and preservation
process. 1 think my previous statement, as published in good faith by the Reader^ s Digest^
was unjust to Russian scientists. They seem to be giving us everything, including the
blood bank technique which they originally deveiopira, and which has saved thousands
of American lives.

RXPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 6g

and also studied for the ballet, but apparently failed to make the
grade. After the Revolution she passed a normal Soviet girlhood.
She joined the Komsomols, which in American terms is a combina-
tion of the Girl Scouts and the Young Republican Club. She also
belonged to the Society for the Godless, their Epworth League.

Her present job as interpreter for Intourist by Soviet standards
is an excellent one. Since she deals exclusively with foreigners, she
is supplied with good clothes as a soldier is issued a uniform. She
is probably paid little enough and undoubtedly sleeps in a room in
some rabbit warren with other Intourist damosels. But in no other
job could she earn enough to supply herself with silk stockings,
decent shoes, a presentable wool suit, a supply of fresh blouses,
and an occasibnal shampoo. Nor could she eat as well as she does
when on duty with us, where she averages at least three lush gorges
a day. Although we are by now so surfeited that unfolding a
napkin is almost as painful as having our tonsils out, it is still infin-
itely better than the dreary Soviet rations. I hasten to say, both for
truth’s sake and for Jennie’s, that these are my unsupported deduc-
tions : as a loyal Soviet lass she gave me no hint. But I had only to
look at the rest of them.

Her job also gets her around the country. She has in the past
escorted the Germans and Japanese about the country on tours not
unlike ours. She has shepherded trainloads of German Jews who
had bought their tickets in Berlin, clear across European Russia
and Siberia to Vladivostok. She has interpreted for British and
American sailors at Murmansk.

She has followed all her country’s shifts of policy and each has
meant that she must deal with new breeds of foreigners. We Ameri-
cans are the last, or to put it more cautiously, the most recent.
Sometimes she mixes her English with German, because to a
Russian, the two languages are very alike. For instance, there was
that toast at the rubber factory. It had been a long day and Jennie
was tired.

“The director says,”, she translated, “that he wishes to drink
with Meestair Jawn-stone to the long endurance of German-
American-Russian friendship.”

“Watch out, Jennie,” I whispered across the table, “you’ve got
the wrong year.”

REPORT ON THE RUSHANS

FIVE

To-day I go to visit Eric and Joyce at the embassy and am invited
to lunch. Never have simple, vitamin-stuffed dishes like canned
pineapple, and tomato soup made with condensed milk tasted so
good.

Afterwards Joyce and I follow Eric up to his room.

He brings out a list. “This is the itinerary Kirilov gave me that
theyVe worked out for the Urals trip. And boys, it’s too long. Lot
of places rd like to see, of course, but my chamber meeting starts
the twelfth and I absolutely must be bark for that.‘ Kirilov will
understand.

“Tve crossed out some towns on it. But if we visit Magnitogorsk,
Omsk, Sverdlovsk, Novosibirsk, Alma-Ata, Tashkent, and Ashkha-
bad, that’ll get us to Teheran on the eighth in time to get home by
the twelfth. Joyce, you give this revised list to Kirilov — he’ll under-
stand.

“Now to get all those towns in, we should leave here not later
than Wednesday — yes, that’s right — Wednesday we should go.”

Just before Johnston left America, the Soviet Ambassador prom-
ised his Russian trip would include both an interview with Stalin
and a trip to the front. The latter is now going to be delivered, only
we are to visit not the German front but the Finnish. Perhaps this
is a graceful Soviet tribute to my special interest in the Finns.

It is necessary first to go to Leningrad. The reporters are excited
because Eric has agreed to take half a dozen of them along. So far
none of them have been able to get near enough to the battle lines
to hear a gun. A Soviet “front trip” usually consists of a trip in a
dc luxe Pullman in the general direction of the lines, a perfunctory
interview with the sector’s commanding general, inspection of some
abandoned German trenches, and at the end, champagne and
vodka at the officers’ mess.

This time they hope it will be different, so they wear whatever
odd bits of uniforms they picked up at other Allied fronts — khaki
fatigue caps with “U.S.” pins on them and bits of British battle
dress — with one exception, a motley crew. The party included Dick
Lauterbach of Time and Life, Bill Lawrence of the New York
Times and Robert Magidov of NBC, but certainly its most con-
spicuous member was a pushing, plump, semi-bald correspondent,
who had recently arriv^ in Moscow representing an American
newspaper syndicate. He had elbowed his way into the party and
tum^ up at the train resplendent in a brand-new American Officer’s

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 7 1

summer uniform gleaming with brass buttons, campaign ribbons,
and correspondent’s insignia — as fresh as though he had just stepped
out of the Pentagon.

He was promptly dubbed “The Field Marshal” and it was clear
that he didn’t think this joke quite as funny as the rest of us did.
Although he went with us everywhere, he saw very little of either
Leningrad or the front, being constantly preoccupied with the
problem of whether any given group of Red Army soldiers approach-
ing would or would not salute him.

Eric, Joyce, and I travelled in what, when we left Moscow, was
a private car at the end of the train. It was clean and comfortable.
Its rear half contained a long table and there, of course, was the
Intourist steward, laying out the sliced sturgeon, uncorking the
champagne, and opening the cans of caviar.

But just before dusk, the train was halted at a junction and a
ramshackle boxcar was hooked on behind. Two anti-aircraft
machine guns were bolted to its roof. Some straw was also piled
there and on this sprawled the gun’s crew — half a dozen Red Army
boys. The Soviet Union was taking no chances with the safety of the
titular leader of American business.

Thirty or 40 miles farther on we are halted again at a siding
to let a troop train pass us on its way to the Finnish front. It
contains perhaps a regiment, and is mostly flat cars. Artillery,
trucks and tanli are mounted on these, straw is piled around them.
Some of the blond soldiers are sleeping on the straw ; others astride
the guns or tanks watch the green countryside go by.

I remind myself that this is a regiment which has probably been
pulled out of the line farther south, to be thrown without rest
against the Finns. Even so, by Western standards, they look
shabby. They have been haphazardly piled aboard this ijckety
train. Everything seems improvised. The equipment is battered,
a little rusty and considerably lighter in construction than ours.
Were it not for the Slavic faces, this might be a Mexican regiment on
the move.

In many ways Russia is like Mexico. Both peoples have been
basically agricultural, with no great aptitude for industry anA still
less experience. The general poverty of Russia, as far as I could sec,
is no less than that of Mexico except that it is a cleaner poverty.
Also the standard of health is better in Russia and this has cut the
infant mortality rate. Russian doctors do not have the problem of
persuading the peasants to accept what medical care they arc
equipped to give. In Russian villages the people aren’t asked;
they are told.

It is now bedtime, and I undress in the compartment, which I

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

share with Joyce. It is a little larger than an American Pullman
compartment but it lacks all the ingenious contraptions with which
Western nations make limited space useful. There is no washbasin.
There is no toilet. The only mechanical device is the bolt on the
door.

I climb into my upper berth and Joyce, below, switches out the
light and is soon snoring. After half an hour, I discover that another
missing gadget is a ventilating system. In this confined space, the
temperature is rising, and with it an odor. It is like being locked in
the vault of a small and none too solvent state bank, unprotected by
the Federal Deposit Guarantee.

There is, however, a remedy, and I reach out for the door which
leads into the corridor. Then I remember that among the perils
which constantly threaten Joyce in his travels, is the menace of fresh
air. During the day his system can tolerate moderate amounts of it,
but at night he takes every precaution, particularly here where they
have the further complication of Socialist fresh air.

Gingerly, I reach out to the door and push so that it opens noise-
lessly. About three inches. Joyce’s snores subside, and then
onnJnously cease. There is a sudden bang as the door slams shut. 1
call out, “Joyce?”

“Yeauh,” he mutters. “Those damn Russians. Opened our
door. Give us all pneumonia.”

In the morning the long table is again set for breakfast with the
wine and vodka glasses. What we want is orange juice, toast, and
coffee. What we’ll get is that standardized Intourist orgy.

This section of the railway line was bitterly fought over, and the

n le have begun to come back, living in the abandoned dugouts
e sides of the deeper grade cuts. They are women, barefooted
and ifi rags, and an occasional child. Their miserable laundry,
which they have washed in ditch puddles, is drying on the barbed
wire. German trenches look exaedy as they did in the last w^ar — well
braced with timber experdy sawed to size, well made duckboard in
the trenches’ bottom, and neatly piled sandbags on the parapet.
In such things a most orderly and thorough people.

Whh us on this trip is a chunky young colonel, assigned from the
Red Army staff in Moscow to explain military matters.

“Yes,” he agrees through the interpreter, “they make excellent
trenches, always.” Then he adds, “It is a people which must have
its comfort.” The train comes out onto level ground and we see
that these ragged women, who plough barefoot through this mud,
have planted litdc potato patches in clearings of the debris of con-
crete pillboxes, barbed wire, and the rusdng ruins of wrecked tanks.
The women stare blankly with beaten down, blue eyes at the train

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 73

windows, while sitting at our breakfast table, we stare at them over
the row of wine glasses.

“Now somebody,” said Eric, “ought to do a magazine piece about
these Russian women. Look at them out there — back working
already — clearing things up. The women of Russia ! Probably the
engineer and fireman on this train are women. Look at all the
women we’ve seen in the factories. Those women out there don’t
shrink from hard work ! They’re practically keeping Russia going !
The magnificent women of Russia ! No, thank you, Kirilov, don’t
think I’d care for any more of that wine. Almost never take it.
You haven’t got any just plain water, have you?”

We glide through a wood as heavily blasted by artillery fire as
those of the Somme in 1916. Only a few shattered, branchless
trunks protrude above the shell holes. At this point the Red Army’s
excellent artillery had to blast the Germans out of every inch of
ground.

The colonel tells us that these German fortifications were built
at the time they cut the railway line, completing the encirclement
of Leningrad — in late 1941 and early 1942. This encirclement was
only broken by the Russians late in 1943.

We now pass a railway siding where the heavy machinery of a
factory stands loaded on flat cars. It is a former Leningrad plant,
returning from its wartime exile in the Urals.

As we drive from the Leningrad station to our hotel, we get a
good look at the city. It is a beautiful, spacious, well-planned town,
built over two hundred years ago on the shores of the Baltic by
order of Peter the Great. Its site was an uninhabited salt marsh and
it was completed in about two decades.

As part of a drive toward Westernization and modernization
Peter built his new capital on the shores of the Baltic, giving Russia
a window on the civilized outside world. There is in its beautiful,
clean architecture little suggestion of Russia, for the good reason
that the architects were all French or Italian. The city might be
part of Paris except for its churches and except for the fact that its
public buildings and palaces are painted lemon yellow, which was
the colour of the czars.

It is, of course, now run-down and dilapidated. Yet, somehow,
we all felt we were back in Europe, in a gently cultured, comfortable
world.

Russians, who are proud of the war-sufferings of Leningrad, arc
always annoyed if you mention the fact that the town is less damaged
than London. Actually the beautiful old central part is almost
intact, except for broken window glass and nickel cornices. Shell
or bomb craters are rare.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

During our Leningrad stay we are put up at the Hotel Astoria,
one of the relics of czarist grandeur. Eric has what could be no
less than the former Romanov bridal suite and we inspect this with
awe. There is a large dining room, a spacious sitting room and a
thundering big bedroom with matching double beds covered in
silk brocade. The rooms are done in the lavish style of czarist days,
and there are several pieces of porcelain bric-a-brac, thick with
china cupids tickling each other or else pinching the gilded bottoms
of angels.

Best of all, the light switches seem to work, and the bathroom’s
beautiful plumbing is clean. There is no smell, nor is there any
scum around the lower part of the hand bowl, so its drain must
be unclogged — truly a novelty in Russia.

What the china cupids in Joyce’s room are doing to his angels,
I do not know, for I have a slightly less luxurious suite (twin beds,
sitting room, and bath) farther down the hall, which I invite Dick
Lauterbach of Time to share with me.

The correspondents are excited, for a few days here are like a
vacation. In Leningrad book stores you can still pick up occasional
second-hand copies of French, German, or English books, relics of
prc-Rcvolution middle-class libraries. Looking out of our tall French
windows, over the housetops, we might be in Paris or Vienna. Even
the venerable maid who looks after our room remembers a few
words of French, the language of the czarist educated classes.

Outside the tiny island of our hotel, there is only the monotonous
Soviet poverty, in the shop windows and in pinched faces of the
people. Yet something still lingers in the beautiful wide streets and
m the simple, well-proportioned lines of the houses, as orderly as a
Bach minuet. The new order has not quite laid the graceful old
ghost of European St. Petersburg, which lingers in a delicately pro-
portioned window, in a beautifully bound but now forgotten volume
on a shelf.

Opposite our hotel is St. Isaac’s Cathedral, but there is no hint
of Europe in its architecture. It squirms with Byzantine ornament
over which float onion-shaped spires. It is Russia, and back of
Russia, the Eastern Empire of Constantinople, and back of that
Bagdad and the temples of Asia.

Above St. Isaac’s door is an inscription in Old Slavonic (the
ancestor of modern Russian) : “Ckni, with your help, we uphold our
Czar.” The Bolsheviks have not bothered to change it. The doors
arc closed ; maybe because of bomb damage to its roof, or possibly
it has been locked for years.

Leningrad’s sidewalks are empty of people; sometimes in a huge
square there will be no one in sight — a sharp contrast with teeming

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 75

Moscow. Before the war Leningrad had 3,500,000 people. The
government pves no figures on the number who starv^ during the
siege, but estimates vary between 500,000 and i ,500,000. The rest
were evacuated except for a skeleton force which remains. It is
like strolling through Pompeii.

Before the war most of Russia’s highly skilled precision workers
lived here (again the European influence) and it was the centre of
Russia’s precision industries — cameras, optical equipment, telephone
instruments, radios, electric light bulbs, dynamos, and fine machine
tools, which, however, were only about 10 per cent of the whole,
for Leningrad also made many tractors and comparable machines.
Most of this factory equipment and the people who worked at it
were loaded into freight cars and hauled halfway across Russia to
the Urals, Siberia, or the Chinese border, where they are now
operating.

But now our programme begins. We are taken to Leningrad’s city
hall and there we meet the official architect of the city — Alexai
Baranov. On the wall is a huge map of future Leningrad. Some of
this grandiose plan had been built before the war; most of it is
still only on paper.

When it is done, old St. Petersburg will be a back-eddy of
mouldering history. In the new Soviet megalopolis of the blue
prints, boulevards will slash through it, housing developments will
rise stretching far down the shores of the Finnish Gulf. They will
carve a great park of Culture and Rest out of the present city near
the old Fortress of Peter and Paul. A new square in honour of the
1917 Revolution will be opened up in front of Smolny Institute,
where Lenin organized the overthrow of Kerensky and brought the
Bolshevik Party to powder.

They tell us Leningrad’s intellectuals continued with this planning
during the blockade, as both architects and people were sure
their town would never fall. Like everything in Russia, it is very
impressive in its blue print stage. Eric is presented with a beautifully
printed monograph on old and new Leningrad, issued while Lenin-
grad was still under siege.

Back into our Zeeses and on to the new Palace of the Soviets,
the hub of the future city. We move toward the suburbs but the
buildings don’t trail off in size, as they do toward the edge of
an American town, where the yards gradually get bigger, garden
plots appear with now and then a cluster of crossroads filling
stations, grocery stores, and billboards.

Instead we drive down a wide street between rows of six-story
concrete barracks-like workers’ apartments. Suddenly the city stops
as abruptly as the noise of a pistol shot. Beyond the last apartment

76 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

are the open fields of a collective farm, whose buildings we can see
in the distance.

But near us is not a shack, a shed, a bungalow, or an old fence.
We have emerged into open fields of grain and potatoes.

An American or European city grows like a plant — naturally,
freely, sending out roots and shoots in search of water or sunlight,
twisting, bending, groping tentatively this way or that. Broadway
was once an old cow path; the Paris boulevards trace the sites of
the medieval city’s walls.

Now and then our cities need (and get, although this is often too
long delayed) a major face-lifting operation — slums are scooped out
to be replaced by parks, or a boulevard cut through to drain off
traffic, when the city’s natural growth has proved its needs.

Here a city follows, not the contours of the land nor the desires
of the people, but a blue print on a drawing board. Suppose those
people in that six-story concrete workers’ barracks had been able
to choose; would not some of them have preferred modest bunga-
lows here in the outskirts, if the collective farm were permitted to
sell them a building lot and a small garden?

If allowed this much freedom, one might want the right to quit
his factory job and start a crossroad store, exploiting his neighbours
by selling them merchandise from a temptingly convenient location,
thus disrupting the plans of the Soviet Food Commissariat.

They would point out that under capitalism such little men often
make mistakes, locating crossroad stores where there is no need
for them, and then go broke.

A spokesman for capitalism would answer that so would most
Soviet enterprises if they had any free competition. But here com-
petition with the state is outlawed, so inefficiency is protected and
the people accept it because they know nothing better. Occasionally
some Russian expert returns from abroad with the news that keen
capitalist competition has developed a cheaper, quicker way of
doing something. Then, if he can get in to see the important
commissars and beat down the natural inertia of a bureaucracy,
the new system is installed throughout the Soviet Union. But more
often than not capitalism pioneers, while socialism only copies.

Somehow those six-story concrete barracks, dropping off sharply
into empty fields, tell us more vividly the story of rigid socialist
planning than anything we have seen.

Our hosts are proud of the straight new concrete highway on
which we are riding. This section of the New Leningrad is being
built on *‘The American Plan,” they explain.

Someone gathers courage to ask them what, exactly, is this
American Plan.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 77

But surely, we must know 1 Anyway, the American plan of city
building is to build the concrete roads first, even before you are
ready to put up the apartment houses.

But now we are approaching the Palace of the Soviets, a tall,
impressive building which towers over the empty fields just off the
highway. Its architecture is pleasantly simple; along the facade
facing us is a row of tall, thin white columns, which might be
mist^^en for marble. Getting closer, we see their stucco surface is
already peeling. Beneath is a hollow , shell-like tube of bricks.

Like most new Soviet buildings, it reminds us of the structures
that rise suddenly from the exposition grounds of American world’s
fairs — always grandiose and impressive-designed to amaze or amuse
but not intended to last after the gates are closed.

As we walk back toward our cars, the reporters tell me that
the Kremlin’s new plans for rebuilding the devastated regions show
a sharp trend away from these concrete workers’ barracks, which
they have been building since the Revolution. Instead they are
planning cottages, each with a yard or garden-plot.

This reflects the whole change in Bolshevik thinking — a move
back to the family as a unit — away from easy abortions, community
kitchens, and free divorce.

It has taken a bureaucracy almost a generation fiddling with blue
prints and human happiness to arrive at this simple conclusion.

But maybe this has always been a nation of blue prints. After
all, old St. Petersburg was just as abruptly and rigidly planned on
the salt marshes. And again that enigma which we meet almost
every time we see something fantastic: is this a manifestation of
Communism or is it because these particular Communists are
Russians — a race grandiose in its plans but sloppy in its execution of
them?

Leaving the Palace of the Soviets, we continue on beyond the paved
road. When it ends, we bump over ruts to the German fortifica-
tions. They are neat and orderly like German entrenchments every-
where. At this point the German line ran through a little cluster of
houses, which was a co-operative farm and had been heavily shelled
by Russian artillery because near it the Germans located one of the
big siege guns which pounded Leningrad. The Germans got their
gun out but its great emplacement remains, a careful job of concrete
work and camouflage, which the Russians show us with respect.

But the little co-operative farm buildings took a pounding — doors
were blown from their hinges, all the glass is gone and also tjie
roofe, although some of the beams remain.

Already the people are returning. We see three ragged .women

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

picking about the ruins, trying to put on one end of a room a
temporary roof which will shelter a stove from the rain. A shy,
chunky, ninrteen-ycar-old girl, dragging from another ruined house
a heavy rafter, passes us on the path. She is in rags, but they arc
clean rags. We stand aside to let her pass. She avoids our eyes. Her
hands have calluses as thick as those of a stonemason. We watch
the prints which her bare feet leave in the mud path as she goes on
up toward the other house, dragging the beam. So Russia is built.

Now at last we turn back toward Leningrad. The reporters tell
me its people are tremendously proud of their city, and regard
themselves as culturally superior to the rest of Russia. They arc also
proud that they were able to hold the Germans for wear)% starving
months at llic city’s gates, and finally hurl them back. They are
contemptuous (T Moscow which they have always regarded as an
overgrown peasant village, but particularly now because of the
panic which swept Moscow when the Germans were at its gates.

To make conversation we ask our Leningrad hosts, riding with
us in the car, when Leningrad evacuees will be returned to their
proud city.

I’hev tell us calmly that most of them probably will never return.
For Le ningrad was evacuated, not by districts or by classes, but by
factories, 'riu sc were scattered beyond the Urals, all over Siberia
and Russian Turkestan. Most of these factories will probably stay
and, of ( oursc, their people with them.

New and even more modern factories will be built in Leningrad.
New people will be brought from other parts of the country to
run them. These things seem to be no problem in Russia. But we
wonder about the people. Will the mellow old buildings of Czar
Peter give the new people the pride which the old ones had in their
city? Will the former Leningraders back of the Urals remember
with pride that they were citizens of a city which was Russia’s
window on Europe? Or will the proud tradition, which survived
even Ikdshevism, melt to nothing? Clearly, it matters little to these
brisk young Russians who are now rebuilding Leningrad.

Few of them, it develops, were born in the city. Like American
city managers, they arc specialists in government. They do a job in
one town, are promoted to another, and thus climb the ladder of
bureaucracy.

We were halfway across Leningrad, going to our hotel, when
Eric had a happy impulse.

“Kirilov !” he suddenly called, “stop the car, let’s get out here for
a minute — right by this church. I’d like to go in and look around.
We’ve never seen one, you know.”

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

“1 do not know,” said Kirilov, “if the church is open.”

However, it was and we streamed inside. It was as over-decorated
as a lace valentine but gloomy. Presently, an old man appeared and
began switching on dim little chandeliers. Kirilov said he was the
warden who would show us around. And then the warden apolo-
gized that today the priest was not here to meet us. The old man
said we were in the Church of St. Nicholas.

“It has,” translated Kirilov without cracking a smile, “a miracle-
working ikon.”

The church was built in two elevations and as we climbed the
stairs, we heard singing and discovered that we had blundered in
on choir practice. At one side of the main altar were lights and
here the choir was sitting around on folding chairs. They were
all women in early middle age, very well dressed by Soviet standards
and decently dressed by ours. There were perhaps a dozen. They
went on with their singing, paying no particular attention to
us. It could have been choir practice any weekday afternoon in
any Episcopal church in America.

The music was an old Greek choral chant, and very beautiful.
Presently, there appeared a tall, plump, blond man in his early
fifties, who wore a white shirt and clean, stiff collar, a dark tie and
a blue serge suit, which fitted him rather well. Had it been in
America, I would have guessed him the owner of a comfortable
small business, and head vestryman in the church. That seemed to
be his position in this one.

Kirilov told him who we were. He had read of Mr. Johnston
and was much flattered that we should pay his church this unex-
pected visit, smiling us a hearty welcome. He apologized because
the Father himself was not here, but volunteered to show us the
various altars and the miracle-working ikon, switching lights off
and on and being frugal of electricity, since, as we knew, a church
must pay staggeringly high rates for its current.

We asked how the money was raised for keeping the church
in repair, and were told that the state took care of this, so we
looked more closely. At least it came up to the standard of other
Soviet public buildings.

I go into detail about this simple incident because all of it surprised
me. I had expected to find the church deserted, except for a few
ragged, superstitious old women.

But these people, on our surprise visit, were not old, and were
decently dressed. Clearly, they or their husbands held positions of
some consequence — engineers, maybe, professional men or minor
administrators — yet they had no fear of jeopardizing this by attend-
ing church.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

Kirilov and the other Russians with us represented a party and a
government which has bitterly .opposed their church. But they
stood in no fear, nor did they make an obsequious fuss over him.
They went about their business. The head layman treated us
exactly as would his opposite number in America if a member of the
city council showed up at an American church with distinguished
foreigners in tow. If there were any sinister undertones, I was too
stupid to catch them.

So much for what I myself saw of the Russian church; now for
what more skilled observers told me. First, bear in mind that Com-
munist Party members continue their private contempt for religion.
They regard such doctrines as the forgiveness of sin and the immor-
tality of the soul as childish superstitions on a level with palmistry.
It is highly improbable that anyone holding to any of these beliefs
would be regarded as fit for membership in the Party, which in
Russia is the only road to power.

However, the Orthodox Church is now, for all practical purposes,
the officially established church of the Soviet Union, with a repre-
sentative on the Council of People’s Commissars, corresponding to
a cabinet post in the Western countries. For this change, Hitler
is largely responsible.

After the 1917 Revolution,* most of the Orthodox Church leaders
emigrated to the Balkans, and Hitler, as part of his invasion plans
for the Soviet Union, seized on this historical background. He
established a number of Orthodox churches in Berlin, including a
cathedral, and earmarked millions of reichsmarks for their support.
After he invaded France, he commandeered silk to make religious
vestments. When he entered Russia, he proclaimed himself the Pro-
tector of the Russian Church ; every German army quartermaster
was equipped with a supply of these vestments as well as sacred
church vessels, and churches were everywhere re-opened in the
Ukraine.

When the Communists dropped their anti-religious propaganda,
in the schools and on the stage, and suspended the ofRcial publica-
tion for the Society of the Godless because of a “paper shortage,”
their critics in the outside world insisted that these moves were
only to impress foreigners.

These critics were wrong; the Party had sounder domestic
reasons for changing their policy. For the Germans were making
headway in the Ukraine with their religious propaganda, and
whispers were going all over Russia. Not only was it popular with the
older people, but many of the young were joining the Germans.
During the final stages of the Ukrainian mop-up, the Red Army
came on entire regiments of Ukrainians in German uniform. The

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 8 1

numerous “Russians” whom the Americans captured during the
Normandy landing were undoubtedly some of the same.

As a further answer to this German propaganda in the Ukraine,
three dignitaries of the Russian Orthodox Church were invited to
see Stalin and on September 4, 1943, a formal reconciliation was
effected and the Church got its place on the Council of People’s
Commissars. This is a complete reversal of the action of January
23, 1918, which separated Church and State in Russia. The Metro-
politan of Leningrad also was given a high Soviet decoration for his
part in encouraging the morale of the people during the blockade.

A further explanation of the change is that the Bolshevik Party
now feels strong enough to tolerate, even to recognize, the Church.
The clergy have loyally supported the war. And the principal
reason for the Party's original opposition lay in the fact that the
Church had in previous generations preached unquestioning
obedience to the czars. The Party has not overlooked the fact that a
patriotic, nationalistic Church can be as useful to their regime as it
was to the Romanov dynasty. So many of the churches reopened
by the Germans in the Ukraine remain open, particularly in
Zhitomir and Odessa. Even some of the clergy who came in with
the Germans are permitted to officiate. The State printing presses in
Moscow are now^ turning out beautifully printed religious books
for the use of the Church, and it has consented to the establishment
of a seminary for training priests, so that the faith will not die out.

But although the Church is now recognized and tolerated, it is
not officially encouraged. The Party realizes that the new policy is
popular abroad, and strengthens in America and England both its
own position and that of its friends in those countries. Consequently,
it encourages all news stories and picture layouts coming out of
Russia portraying the new state of affairs.

The Party was delighted when the Metropolitan Benjamin,
canonical representative of the Russian Orthodox Church for the
Americas, in 1942 told Canadians that separation of Church and
State in Russia was not more severe than in all other truly democratic
countries. Of course, such statements never appeared in the Russian
press. Marx called religion “Opium for the people.” The private
attitude of the Party would be, “If the people still want opium, why
not give them a little? We are strong now, and today the Church is
patriotic.”

Something of the basic attitude towards the Church, however,
may be seen in a little thing like electric light rates. A state-owned
store pays only i-i6 kopeks per kilowatt-hour for its current, a home
user is charged 5*5, while a church must pay 41.

While the Bolshevik regime has finally arrived at a comfortable

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

and probably permanent living arrangement with the Orthodox
Church, the case is far different with the Church of Rome. This
has become important only since the war, when the Soviet Union
absorbed the Baltic States and parts of Poland, all of which contain
many millions of Roman Catholics.

Some concessions have been made. After Hitler’s attack on
Russia, the Soviet’s Polish prisoners of war were released from
internment camps and presently organized into several divisions
originally headed by General Anders. While these troops and their
families were on Russian soil, the Soviet government permitted the
teaching of the Catholic religion to their children in special Polish-
language schools, organized for them by the Soviet Department of
Education. Anders was also permitted to have thirty-seven Catholic
chaplains for his seven divisions.

Regardless of the basic contempt of all Communists for religion,
the Orthodox Church is a purely Russian institution, and its clergy
are now as completely obedient to the Kremlin as they were once
subservient to the Czar. But the Pope, an Italian living in Rome,
is another matter. Like the Nazis, who in these matters are only
paler copies of the Communist political system, the Soviet Govern-
ment permits outsiders to have little contact with, and certainly
no authority over, the people within its borders. So as long as the
Soviet Union contains within its frontiers a considerable Roman
Catholic population, any agreement between the two could only
be an armed truce.

It is late when we leave the church, but our hosts insist we must
visit the Leningrad Defence Museum, which turns out to be an
enormous world’s fair type of exhibit telling the story of the city’s
recent siege. At such things Russians, who have a native sense of
drama, are at their best.

In the central lobby there is a bronze statue of Lenin, addressing
the people during the Revolution while standing in an armoured car.
There are dozens of groupings. We are shown how Leningrad’s
luxury and precision industries mobilized for war; a perfume
factory makes disinfectant, a radio assembly line turns out shell-
timing devices.

Here is the telegraph apparatus connected with the line laid under
Lake Ladoga, Leningrad’s only communication with the rest of
Russia during the siege. There are pictures of the transportation
system across Ladoga’s ice; the top layer had melted, but cars were
travelling hub-deep over tlic lower one.

A scale model of Leningrad’s bread factory shows how it operated
without electricity or running water, A collection of lamps was
made from bottles after the dcctricity gave out. There were also

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 83

exhibits of the daily bread ration as it had to be successively reduced
because of dwindling supplies. The smallest was 125 grams (about
4 ounces) on December 25, 1941.

We arc shown pictures of people pulling the bodies of their
dead on sleds through the streets toward cemeteries. But the
reporters tell me that bodies frequently were kept in the house or
buried after dark, so the survivors could continue using the food
card.

A most interesting scries of montages is devoted to the partisans;
explaining how organizers arc parachuted into occupied areas,
how the bands camp in the forests. There are photographs taken
from German prisoners showing the execution of Russian girl
partisans.

Why did not France use the partisan technique in 1940? Largely
because, once the Maginot line had been broken, every realistic
Frenchman knew the Germans could reach the Pyrenees at will.
But it was always clear that the Russians — no matter how badly
beaten — would never run out of land into which they could retreat,
since the Pacific was 7,000 miles away.

Occupied France in 1940 thought (and not unreasonably) that
the war was over. Not until Russia and America had entered did
the French people change their minds, and only then was it possible
for the British and Free French to organize the Maquis and establish
airplane contact with them.

The case of Russia was never hopeless, so from the outset it was
as easy to organize civilian resistance in the occupied area as it
later became in France.

Many romantic things have been written about morale, but it is
usually a by-product of facts. When a situation is favourable, morale
is high; when it becomes hopeless, morale vanishes. We Americans
and the English can criticize the French for thinking that the war
had ended in 1940 with a German victory. However, the Russians
can’t, for they also believed it, and their propaganda machines
abroad were doing everything possible to weaken England and
stabilize that victory.

Late that night, very tired, as we trudge back up our hotel stair-
way, we see, passing Johnston’s suite, our customary breakfast ban-
quet table already set with its vodka and champagne glasses. But
next morning the prospect is too grim to face. l 5 ick Lauterbach
and I arouse everybody’s jealousy by ducking the breakfast banquet
for a simple breakfast in our room.

A little furtively we emerge from our dog house to join the rest
of the party as it rises from its breakfast of chocolate cake and

84 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

champagne to visit the famous Leningrad electrical plant, now
named for Kirov, Stalin’s close friend, whose assassination in 1934
started the big political purge of the Communist Party.

The plant’s director is Gregory Mukhin, a gray-haired man of
fifty-three who tells us he was an assistant for nine years and director
after 1941, when he succeeded his former boss, who took most of
the plant’s machinery with him behind the Urals. The present plant,
he explains, employs only 3,000 people. Before the war 6,000 worked
here. It is now producing no consumption goods — only generators,
hydro-electric turbines, and electrical equipment for the Red Army.
Their generator sizes range between 1,500 and 100,000 kilowatts.

But before we start our inspection, the director tells us the story
of his plant during the siege. The German lines were only 5J
kilometres away, and more than 1,500 eight-inch shells fell in
the area. Early in 1943 they started restoring the plant and even
at the hardest time more than a thousand workers were turning out
small motors for the front which could be used for charging bat-
teries. These were sent out of Leningrad by plane. Recalling those
bitter days, the director’s eyes fill with tears. The spirit of the
workers helped them go on, he tells us. They were convinced
Leningrad would never surrender. Most of the workers lived, ate
and worked in the plant. In 1943 they sent out to war plants in
the Urals, where machinery was desperately needed, a lOo-ton
engine and also a 50-ton generator. Both were hauled on sledges
over Lake Ladoga’s ice.

In this factory they maintain an industrial school, where 500
high-school-agc boys arc taking a two-year course.

At one point girls working at a row of benches are winding and
assembling a small electric motor. Eric says it is a standard type
which sells for $5 5 in America. He knows, for he makes and deals
with electrical equipment at his Spokane factory.

They tell us that 250 people work in this division. They turn
out 400 motors a month. So wc do a little figuring. At American
prices, these motors would bring a monthly total of $22,000. If
tills sum were divided equally among the 250 assemblers here, each
would get $88 a month, which is almost exactly the wages they do
get, in terms of the actual purchasing power of the rouble.

But this leaves nothing whatever for general factory overhead
or the wages of the management, nor docs it allow for the cost of
the wire and metal parts, since these people only assemble.

Obviously, if their factory is to make a profit, that little motor
must be sold for at least double what it would cost in America,
and this because of tlic inefficiency of Soviet production methods.
One worker turns out only ii^ motors per month. Is it unskilled

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 85

management or unskilled labour ? Whatever the answer, the picture
is the same in almost every plant we visit.

This factory is also badly lit and dirty. Going from building to
building we thread our way among scattered piles of twisted, rust-
ing metal rubbish. But since it was long under bombardment, it
is only fair to assume that this time the Germans, not the Russians,
are responsible for the disorder.

Strolling through the plant, they stop to show proudly a device
which was made to the order of the Great Russian physicist, Joffe,
who has been engaged in splitting the atom. The centr^ part
of it appeared to be a large, solid steel kettle-drum, but was probably
a magnet.

One of the reporters tells the story of a famous Russian chemist,
who after the Revolution found an honoured position on the Oxford
teaching staff. However, the Bolsheviks, who have a deep respect
for science, kept after him to come back, offering him not only
honours and salary, but unlimited research facilities, and finally they
succeeded in persuading him.

A few years ago they were entertaining a group of British and
American scientists, and the old Russian chemist, now a highly
honoured professor, was brought out to greet them at a big dinner. He
was, of course, delighted to see his old friends again and was warm
in his praises of Western universities, of Oxford, and in particular
of Massachusetts Institute of Technology which he had often visited.
There, he said, one found the true scientific spirit, a fine atmosphere
for the search after pure truth — a great assemblage of minds.

“But, professor,” piped up an eager young Komsomol, “what
about our Soviet universities? You say nothing of them.”

“Young man,” said the old chemist, “in our Soviet universities
we teach the students many important facts. But at M.I.T. they
teach them to think,”

The authorities, of course, didn’t care for the remark but the old
man was an honoured world figure and could get away with it.

Now we enter the main Kirov plant and have our initial session
with Nicholas Puzyrev, a stocky man of forty-one, its director.

He starts out by telling us that this factory is rich in tradition —
during the Revolution it furnished many soldiers to Lenin’s army.
Trotsky was the military commander at that time, but, of course,
his name cannot be mentioned.

Before the war, the director says, his factory employed 32,000
workers. How many now ? He dodges — almost the only time any-
one has refused to give us a frank answer. Anyway, several thousand,
he says after> hesitating. It was probably a legitimate military

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

secret. The plant functioned all through the blockade, producing
mostly ammunition for Leningrad’s defenders. And the number of
workers has “slightly increased” since the blockade’s high point.
Now its principal work is the production of tank motors.

The workers had their greatest casualties in the early days of the
bombardment, the director explains. Later, they learned to take
cover when the German artillery opened up. But we should hear
the story from the workers themselves in the plant.

He conducts us down a long assembly line and stops at a particular
grinding machine presided over by a beautiful girl — the only
attractive one in the room. She is tall, blonde, and blue-eyed but
her Slav face is unusually grim. She is a Stakhanovite* Komsomolt
and can’t be more than twenty-two. We ask about her production
record, and she explains that she works not for the extra pay but
from hatred — her father and mother starved during the siege. At
the factory, she says, the workers ate grease from the guns and
oil from the machines. From nowhere, a bouquet of flowers appears,
is slipped to Eric, who presents it to her. She receives it with a
faint smile and goes on with her work.

The correspondents remember her — she talked to them when they
toured Leningrad five months ago.

Leaving the plant, wc pass through rows of workers’ apartments
and arc surprised to see how little damage a single shell does to
the great concrete beehives. It will open out only one or two cells
in the honeycomb.

We also see a string of rusting streetcars backed up on a siding.
Once they took workers into Leningrad. During the siege they were
placed here and filled with gravel and dirt to serve as fortifications
m case the Germans broke through the line a few kilometres away.
The Germans didn’t, and now green grass is growing out of the
dirt-filled windows. But the lines stayed in this position, they tell
us, for 900 days. You could hear German machine guns plainly in
Leningrad — cannon twenty-four hours a day. Now all is quiet.

They drive us from Leningrad to Peterhof, the great palace built
by Peter the Great just outside his capital.

The Germans occupied Peterhof and all Leningrad’s other
suburbs. For instance, Ligova was a suburban town of 35,000.
When the Russians rcoccupicd it, they found not a living soul.
The same with Pushkina, which had 50,000, and Peterhof, which
had 45,000.

At last wc arc in sight of Peterhof— a beautiful palace rather faith-
fully copied from Versailles, but painted the Imperial lemon yellow.

* A worker with a high production record.

t A member of the Young Communist League.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 87

It stands in its beautiful gardens, a stately roofless ruin — burned by
the Germans.

Before the fire it was looted. They found gold chairs in the mud
of German trenches and dugouts. We ask if the looting was organ-
ized. The Russians say, unfortunately not — otherwise there would
be some chance of getting it back after the war. Individual German
officers — sometimes soldiers as well — would go into the palace, cut
down huge pieces of the great gold embroidered draperies, and
send them home to their thrifty wives — ‘'But look — Hans sent me
this from the Palace of the Russian Czars!” — treasures carefully
preserved during all the turbulence of the Revolution.

A few villagers who remained saw the Germans take the 30,000
catalogued pieces of furniture, bric-a-brac, and draperies out of
Peterhof — an enormous Gobelin tapestry was the prize of a general
— before they lit the lire.

After the Revolution the Bolsheviks made Peterhof a museum
and public park where the workers came to spend their days off.
The Russians are sure that only in the Soviet Union could such a
miracle be; they wouldn’t believe that French workers picnicked
by the thousands at Versailles every Sunday.

Directly in front of Peterhof, a canal has been cut through the
forest leading to the near-by Gulf of Finland. And now, from
nowhere, appear hampers of sturgeon sandwiches and vodka bottles
and the grinning In tourist steward. We picnic on tlie banks of the
canal near an enormous stone Hon. Just before she leaves, Jennie
runs over and pats him on the nose. She explains, a little embar-
rassed, that when she was a very small child her mother used to
bring her to Peterhof on Sundays to play, even though the civil
war was still going on. She was always allowed to pat the lion.
Her mother is dead now, and her family is scattered she doesn’t
know where, as so often happens in the Soviet Union, but still she
didn’t want to leave Peterhof without patting the lion good-by.

This evening our Leningrad trip comes to a climax with a big
dinner given in Eric’s honour by Popkov, whose title I suppose
would be Mayor of Leningrad. Anyway, he is head of the local
Soviet and more important still, he is for this region Stalin’s right
bower in the organization of the Communist Party, second only to
Zdanov. Like an American city boss, he runs the town, regardless of
what title he holds.

We are brought to an elaborately furnished old czarist palace
in a park on the Neva’s banks, and sit around in a stiff gold and
brocade room on uncomfortable gold and brocade chairs, drinking
Russian cocktails — those syrupy Manhattans — and sizing up Popkov.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

He is young, small, swarthy, bullet-headed. He has a habit of
peering suddenly at you and then maybe grinning and maybe not.
He talks directly with no wasted words. We like him.

He apologizes because his wife and family were c\'acuated and
cannot meet us. It is the first time this has happened in Russia. So
far, these important Bolsheviks have entertained us like Moslem
princes — without mentioning their hidden families.

It is not quite time to sit down so Popkov (he is, of course, sur-
rounded by his own experts and assistants) invites us for a brief
stroll through the gravelled walks of the park along the Neva.

We look back at the palace. I ask its name.

It has no name, he tells me; it is simply his office.

“I thought it was piobably the Winter Palace.”

Popkov gives a little self-satisfied laugh at this. He has come a
long way, but he hasn’t quite moved into the czar’s quarters yet.

“No,” he says, “only an old palace I use for my office.”

Then at Eric’s request he tells of the siege. He was in command
the whole time. They kept in Leningrad, he tells us, only that part
of the population needed to defend the town. Then they organized
air-raid defences and started improving Leningrad's communications.

After many weary months, the blockade was finally broken. To
get the railway working, the Russians rebuilt two bridges in twenty
days. When this was done, the problem was to free the city, so the
people were put to work supplying the army with tanks, machine
guns, and ammunition from the restored factories.

He had not finished the narrative when we went in to dinner.
The palace dining hall and table were what you would expect, some-
thing out of an eighteenth century set in the movies.

We were impressed and showed it, and this pleased Popkov, who
had settled into his great throne at the head of the table.

They started passing the caviar.

“Next we will have soup,” said Popkov expansively, “and this
evening there are tw'o kinds. Of course, w^c have plain cabbage
soup”— here he paused — “but then we also have a special broth — ”
and this he described in considerable detail, stressing all the rare and
special tilings that went into liis super soup, and ending, “Which
will you have?”

“The cabbage soup,” I said, maybe a little too promptly.

“Not the special broth?”

“Just tlie cabbage soup.”

In the end I got the special broth. So, in fact, did everybody else.
I was about to protest, when it occurred to me that just possibly
Popkov had been showing off, and that his kitchen, being sensibly
run, had only made one Hnd of soup.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 89

The dinner now began to jog along. Popkov turned loose with
a couple of Soviet funny stories, one of which was mildly dirty
and the other mildly anti-Semitic. I begin with the latter.

“It seems,” said Popkov, or rather the interpreter for him, “that
the First Imperialist War of 1914-1917 created such a rumpus that
it penetrated Heaven, so the Lord God sent Saint Peter down to
find out what was the matter. Next day he got a telegram: urgent.

NOT HAVING PROPERLY COUNTERSIGNED TRAVEL PERMIT HAVE BEEN
THROWN IN JAIL BY THE CHEKA. PLEASE OBTAIN RELEASE EARLIEST.
PETER.

“The Lord God sent Saint Paul, and next day got this telegram:

WHILE MAKING INQUIRIES FOR PETER ENCOUNTERED CHEKA POLICE AND
NOT HAVING PROPER IDENTITY PAPERS AM HELD IN JAIL FOR INVESTIGA-
TION. IMPORTANT SEND HELP AT ONCE. PAUL.

“So the Lord God sent Saint Jacob, this also being a common
Jewish name in Russia, and the following day opened this telegram:

PETER AND PAUL RELEASED WITH APOLOGIES SITUATION COMPLETELY IN
HAND AW.\IT YOUR FURTHER ORDERS. JACOB, CHIEF OF THE CHEKA.”

The mildly dirty story concerned the wives who were evacuated
from Leningrad during the siege and the girls who remained and
took their places. It was all couched in terms of fighting Communist
war slogans, and is funny if you have become a little bored by them,
as most Russians are.

The evacuated wives, for instance, learning of what was going on
in Leningrad, took as their slogan, death to the foreign invaders !

But when the wives returned, the girls who had taken their places
adopted as their slogan, now we go underground to become

PARTISANS AND CONTINUE THE STRUGGLE SECRETLY !

Eric now came back with a couple of safe ones which the Russians
seemed to enjoy, but then it was time to get to work, toasting
our old friends. Marshal Stalin and Gospodin Roosevelt. After that
we relaxed again.

Popkov, by now, was reasonably mellow, leaning back in his
chair. He said he was delighted to have us with him. He hoped
we were learning about Russia, which maybe we hadn’t understood.
Now, for instance, he said, there were some things he certainly
didn’t understand about our country.

And the principal thing, he said, squinting at us, was this : Here
we were, fighting a war together, or anyway Russia was fighting,
and maybe we would be soon. But in spite of that, we let a Fascist
Press exist in America, clearly fascist because it frequently criticized
Russia. That, he said, he certainly could not understand; why we
would let Russia and her leader be criticized in America.

Now, of course, this was Eric’s show and I was only hooking a

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

ride. But 1 wanted to handle this one and signalled as much to Eric.
He gave me a nod to go ahead.

So I got up and said that I could well understand his confusion.
And that perhaps I could clear it up because I was not a business-
man but that I ran a newspaper, and so could speak for them.
America was a free country, and therefore had a free press. And
while most Americans supported both President Roosevelt and
Russia, all of us would fight anyone who tried to stop criticism of
them. Because a country where criticism is dead, is not free. This
right to criticize, I said, is the most important freedom for which
we are now fighting.

Then a curious thing happened. Some of Popkov’s henchmen at
the table were old-timers — men in their fifties and sixties. They were
smiling and nodding approval. One thin old man, who might have
been an architect, even had his hands poised to clap, but then he
looked at Popkov and he didn’t clap.

At this point Joyce got up and said that in a free country we
always criticized our friends. We had been supporting and criticiz-
ing the British ever since this war began in 1939, and we saw no
reason why we shouldn’t do the same with Russia.

Then Eric got up and smoothly settled every thing, freedom of
the press, Russia, England, and even Popkov, who had been a little
bit taken aback by it all, and who now said that this freedom to
criticize was a most interesting thing, and he hoped we didn’t mind
that he had himself used some of this American freedom to criticize
America.

Leaning across the table, I told him that we didn’t mind at all,
that wc had plenty of this freedom in America, and if one day he
came to visit us he would find he was free to criticize our leader,
our government, or anything else he cared to.

So then he filled up his glass and mine, and grinning, said he
suspected me of being a k/iitre moujik, a back-handed Russian slang
compliment, which means “sly farmer’’ — one who knows more than
he appears to.

So I said I was sure he was a kkitre proletarian, and after that we
got along very well. Wc all liked Popkov. He meets you head-on.
He is tough, but this is a tough country and only tough men can
ride this broncho. Talkers don’t last. Kerensky and Trotsky weren’t
^ck enough on the draw. These combination city-manager-Little-
Caesar types are the only ones who can handle it.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

9 «

SIX

This morning we start for the Finnish front and the reporters,
against all experience, are hoping. All previous front trips have
gone no further than the headquarters of a general. But Eric
Johnston, even in America, was promised a look at the fighting.
So this time — Just maybe — .

We drive over one of Russia’s few paved highways — from Lenin-
grad to Viipuri. Until 1940 it was Finland’s second largest city.
Russia took it by the treaty of that year.

In 1941 the Finns again reoccupied it, continued to their old
frontier and then dug in a few kilometres beyond. In these trenches
they stayed during 1942, 1943, and half of 1944, making no attempt
to advance in spite of German pressure on them.

They were there until a few weeks ago, when the Russian drive
easily crashed through their first carefully prepared defence line,
and then their second. We are told that they have now been pushed
back to their third, which is just outside Viipuri.

In 1939 Russia sent almost identical notes to Finland, Lithuania,
Latvia, and Estonia, demanding the right to send the Red Army
in to occupy military bases in these countries. They all protested
vigorously. In the end, all but Finland gave in to Ru.ssian pressure.

Finland argued that although the Russians insisted they only
wanted occupation of these bases for the duration of the war, once
the Red Army was in their country, it would be impossible to get
it out. The Finns decided that under these circumstances they would
rather go down fighting.

Their belief proved to be correct. The three Baltic States were
presently swallowed by the Soviet Union. Because the Finns fought
they got a respite, although in the treaty of 1940, they lost Viipuri,
their second largest city.

The Russians profited greatly in experience by that little war.
They were badly mauled in the first months of fighting because,
being overly impressed by the success of German tank tactics in
flat, treeless Poland, they had tried to copy them in Finland, a roll-
ing, heavily forested country studded with lakes and swamps.

After early setbacks they corrected their errors; they reorganized
their general staff, changed their tactics, and in the opening montlis
of 1940 they did the simple and obvious thing, which they should
have done at the outset; namely, they abandoned all open tactics in
the north, brought up their big guns (which are excellent and which
they possess in great numbers), banked them hub to hub in front of

92 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

the Mannerheim line and blew it to bits, after which the Finnish
infantry could offer only token opposition to the Red Army masses.

In the peace which followed in February of 1940, the Russians
got permanent possession of Viipuri, and the right to garrison, for
the war’s duration, a tiny peninsula called Hango, hardly larger than
Gibraltar, which from a naval standpoint dominates that end of
the Baltic.

World attention was then diverted from Finland by the invasions
of Denmark, Norway, and France but much went on in the Baltic
area. Russia was holding those “plebiscites” which ended the inde-
pendence of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, and although she had
signed a peace with Finland, she brought forth new demands,
insisting on the right to bring troops overland across Finnish soil,
to garrison Hango. Finland protested violently, pointing out that
the Hague Tribunal’s definition of an independent nation was one
which had no foreign troops on its soil. But the Western powers
were occupied, the Red Army threatened to march again, and
Finland could only give in.

Immediately she yielded, the Germans came forward with
demands. They had captured Narvik in northern Norway and were
having trouble garrisoning it by sea. They insisted on the right to
move German troops through Finland to reach Nar\dk by the back
door. Finland protested, but the Germans pointed to the precedent
set by the Russians in the matter of Hango, so Finland yielded —
as Sweden later yielded to similar demands. World conscience was
now of no effect in the Baltic Basin, which had become a totalitarian
sea, and knew no law but force.

Skip now to June 22, 1941, when Hitler attacked Russia. As his
armies crossed the border he spoke to the world over the radio.
Several paragraphs were devoted to praise of Finland’s 1940 resist-
ance to Russia. Germany was now ready to defend the integrity
of little Finland, he said. And even now German troops were on
Finnish soil.

Technically this was true. It had been explained to the Finns,
who had no foreknowledge of the attack on Russia, that these
German divisions were only en route to Narvik.

But the Russians jumped to the conclusion (as Hitler intended
they should) that Finland was already in the war. The Finnish ver-
sion of events is that tlie Russians immediately began bombing
Finnish cities, that the Finns sent unanswered notes of protest.
Historians will settle this point. At present we only know that the
Finnish declaration of war on the Soviets came four days after
Hitler’s attack, indicating the obvious reluctance of many Finns.

Of course all Finns bitterly resented the loss of Viipuri, as we

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 93

•

would resent it if the British took Chicago, explaining that they
needed it for strategic reasons. Undoubtedly many of them wel-
comed war for they wanted Viipuri and would embrace any ally
who gave them hope of getting it back.

The Russians, of course, were quick to claim that Finland’s entry
into the second war completely justified all their suspicions of that
country which had led them to attack her in 1939. Russia, they
had argued, needed Viipuri only to protect near-by Leningrad, to
guard against the likelihood that in the event of a Russo-German
war the Finns would permit the Germans to use their country as a
base. And now, Moscow^ proclaimed, the expected had happened.

There is in history some justification for this belief, for Finland is
the Ireland of Russia. European culture originally came to Finland
through the near-by Swedes, who owned the country for many
centuries. In many Finnish towns a majority of the people are of
Swedish descent and until very recently Swedish was the language
of business and culture.

But Sweden got on the wrong side in the Napoleonic wars and
consequently lost Finland to Russia. However, the early rule of
the czars was not oppressive. The Duchy of Finland was not
incorporated in the Empire but given an autonomy, which would
today be called dominion status. While the czar nominally ruled
as its grand duke, Finland’s free parliament governed the country,
and the Finns enjoyed civil liberties unknown in the rest of Russia,

This continued until about 1907, when the czars decided to
Russify Finland, began appointing Russian officials to Finnish posts
and imposing Russian as the official language. The Finns, con-
sequently, seized the first opportunity to break away, which came
with the Bolshevik Revolution, just as the Irish seized the oppor-
tunity of World War I to try to break away from England with the
Easter Rebellion of 1916.

There followed a bloody civil war. The Russian Bolshevik Party
in Helsinki failed to seize control of the government. But their
leadership was liquidated certainly with no more thoroughness than
their opposite numbers under Lenin and Trotsky across the border.
And in this civil war the Finnish anti-Bolsheviks were helped by
Germans, whose principal motive was to weaken Bolshevism, just
as Germany had tried to weaken England by landing Sir Roger
Casement in Ireland by submarine.

The average Finn has the same deep dislike for Russians that most
Irish have for the British, with, however, one difference. In com-
parison with England, Ireland is a somewhat backward under-
developed agricultural country. But Finland is a much more highly
developed nation than Russia. It has a neat, orderly Scandinavian

94 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

culture, a high standard of literacy, well-cultivated farms, tidy
modem cities, and well-managed little industries. And this has been
true for several centuries.

They regard themselves as in the plight of Massachusetts, were
it unfortunately situated in Yucatan and in constant danger of
being overrun by Mexico. This poor view which Finns take of
Russians dates from earliest times, although the fact that the
Russians have since exchanged the dictatorship of the Romanov
dynasty for that of the Ck)mmunist Party has done little to improve
it, just as it would not help Ireland’s relations with the British if
the latter set up a Bolshevik dictatorship in London.

Consequently, like Ireland, Finland frequently looks for help to
the foes of its oppressor, and in both cases this foe is Germany.
There is, however, some difference in the oppressors. Just as Russia
wanted bases in Finland, so England wanted anti-submarine bases
in Ireland. But when Ireland refused, England (mindful of her own
conscience and of world opinion) did not press the point. She did
not persuade herself that she had been brutally attacked by those
fascist demons, the Irish, and try to overrun the small island by
force of arms.

Finland, like Ireland, would undoubtedly have preferred to
remain neutral in this war although, again like Ireland, the sym-
pathies of her people arc strongly anti-Nazi, for her people are even
more staunchly democratic than the Irish.

And even with German troops on her soil, she has refused to
persecute Jews. An American Jewish organization recently made a
survey of their treatment in various European countries. It reported
that, of all the German “satellite” nations, only Finland had stood
firm in refusing to pass legislation discriminating against the Jews.

Indeed, until after tlie final Russian drive against Finland started
in June of 1944, Finland had refused all offers of alliance with
HiUcr, and had refused to permit German troops to take part in
her offensive against the Russians in the region of Viipuri. When
this drive had regained Viipuri and the other territory taken from
Finland in 1940, Finland then advanced her troops a few kilometres,
occupying several hills, which she said were necessary for strategic
reasons, and then dug in to await the end of the war, making no
attempt to further threaten near-by Leningrad. A few Finns were
not content with this, and volunteered to serve in a Finnish bat-
talion organized by the Germans which fought against the Russians
on the central front in German uniform, along with similar Spanish
and Vichy-Frcnch battalions. But these Finns lacked the official
sanction of their government.

Finland also gave the Germans air bases in the far north firom

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 95

which their planes attacked Allied convoys bringing military sup-
plies to Russia at Murmansk, making this the most dangerous of ^1
Allied ports for our Merchant Marine.

In general, the attitude of the democratic and patriotic Finnish
people toward the w^ar was mixed, because they wanted the impos-
sible: a victory for the democracies combined with the return of
Viipuri.*

They were not much less mixed than my own feelings as we
started out on the old Viipuri highway toward the Finnish lines,
about two hours from Leningrad.

It was a beautiful June day, and the countryside was vividly
green. The land is rolling, with patches of woodland and not many
houses. We share the road with truckloads of Red Army boys
rolling toward the front. Curiously enough, none of them seem^
to have steel helmets, which are also rare in Moscow. Perhaps steel
is scarce, and they are issued only when men are within range of
enemy artillery.

Then we pass a still more curious sight — to our Western eyes —
the wounded coming back from the front — heads in bloody band-
ages, arms in slings, but jolting along in horse-drawn carts. They
are the kind we often whisk back across the Atlantic by plane.

Maybe it was not typical. From three creaking wooden cartloads
it is not safe to assume that human suffering is so cheap in Russia
that you take a man to battle by truck but, once his lighting use-
fulness is gone his time is not valuable, and a horse cart is fast
enough. Only there were the trucks and the carts on the only front
I saw.

Conclusions drawn too quickly are dangerous; for instance, all
of the motor transport I saw at this front was Russian Zeeses
except for three American trucks and two jeeps. However, the
correspondents say that on the other fronts, this proportion is
reversed, and that American transport is an enormous part of the
whole.

Our macadam road now mounts the crest of a hill, and below
us in the valley and on the hill opposite we see the outworks of
the Finnish defence line, behind which they camped from the fall
of 1941 until June 12, 1944 — about a week ago. The valley is thick
with barbed-wire spun like spider web on a stubbly forest of waist-
high posts. The green hill beyond is scarred with zigzag trenches.
The wire, of course, crossed this road but now has been cut, and
we see the tank traps — stout, triangular wooden boxes which the

• For the record I should like to add that the final indemnity was set at a figure which
it will be possible for the Finns to pay and the Soviet Armistice Control Commission to
date has shown no disposition to interfere in the internal affairs of the country.

96 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

Finns filled with stones, having little concrete. The Russians say
they were ingenious. Now they lay piled at the roadside, along with
the severed ends of barbed-wire. Here and there a red flag waves,
with the Russian inscription, “Attention ! Mine field !”

We pick up at this point a gaunt old Red Army lieutenant — a
man in his middle sixties, who has been detailed to explain the
defences to us. He says that the offensive opened at half-past four
in the morning when the Red Air Force plastered Finnish air-
dromes. At six o’clock an artillery barrage was laid down on the
Finnish barbed-wire and pill boxes. They kept it up for twenty-
four hours and at dawn of the next day the Russian tanks went in,
followed by the infantry picking its way through the mine fields.
By evening it was all over, and what was left of the Finns was in
full retreat toward their second defence line, some twenty miles
back. This lasted no time at all. He says the Finns are now fighting
just outside of Viipuri, at a third system of strong points which
occupies the site of the old Mannerheim line of the 1940 war.
And back of this there is only one other — something the Finns
have called the Line of State Defence.

In between these lines the old man says the Finns make no real
attempt at defence, but fall back very rapidly. While we are
stopped, a number of Russian tanks pass, big ones and good-looking,
on their way up to the front. Continuing, we presently pass the
only evidence of German help to the Finns we are to recognize
on this trip - the overturned wreckage of a tiny tank with a swastika
painted on one side. It is so small it could not possibly hold more
than a crew of two, and looks very like the British scout tanks,
which 1 saw around Dover in the fall of 1940, and which were all
the armour Britain hadsalvaged from Dunkerque. This one is camou-
flaged, not brown-green but a tawmy, desert yellow, and might have
been some of Germany’s salvage from her African campaign.

Behind us comes a dull roar and we look up to see a formation
of Stormoviks on their way toward the Viipuri front — flying un-
usually high for Russian bombers, the reporters remark.

Finely at about noon we arrive at the little village of Terijoki,
which I had visited almost five years before when it was a front-line
town on the other side of the Russo-Finnish lines. But that w as in
winter and the houses were buried deep in at least a yard of snow,
which also blanketed the spruce trees. A carload of us, with a
Finnish military conducting officer, had driven out toward the Rus-
sian lines and had stopped in Terijoki for lunch and to warm
ourselves by a porcelain stove against the bitter cold.

But now^ all is changed. It is another season of another year, and
I come to Terijoki the guest of another army. It could ^most be

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 97

another town, for the hub-deep snow is gone, revealing the neatly
painted Finnish houses with white picket fences around their ample
yards. It might be a Vermont village.

Only the grass of the lawns is untidy, the flower beds ragged, and
the houses deserted. For the Russians tell us that when Finland
abandoned this region under the treaty of 1940, the people preferred
to withdraw to Finland. When the Finns reconquered this region
in 1941, they did not bring the people back with their armies —
suspecting that they probably would not be able to keep it.

So for four summers the flower beds have seeded themselves and
the grass has grown high. The village is still deserted except for a
couple of Red Army soldiers who have built a little fire on one
lawn, and are warming their chow over a kettle.

Now we stop, and Kirilov leaves us to visit the local commander
who will decide how much farther and by what road we may go
to the front.

A quarter of an hour later, he comes back and imperturbably
motions us to follow. We drive to the outskirts of Tcrijoki where
there is a huge grove of trees on the shore. Kirilov’s car stops and
so docs ours. He gets out and so do we. Just ahead through the
trees shine the blue waters of the Gulf of Finland.

An American jeep, manned by two Red Army soldiers, stops
behind us. They get out, and bring up hampers covered with nap-
kins, from some of which protrude the necks of bottles. Kirilov
strolls over. But the front, we a.sk.

“The commander has said today we can go no farther. There
would be danger.”

We argue, plead, expostulate.

“The commander has said he cannot be responsible for the safety
of Mr. Johnston. There would be danger.”

We express dismay, chagrin, consternation. We point out that
we have been nowhere near the front.

“The commander has said no further. Now we picnic.” Already
they are handing the sandwiches out of the hampers, opening the
vodka and champagne bottles. With a glass of vodka aboard him,
the old lieutenant smacks liis lips approvingly and becomes very
sprightly. We ask him if he had service in the First Imperialist War
and he says even before — in that of 1905 against the Japanese, and
proudly tells us much of the now forgotten czarist general under
whom he served. We look out over the Gulf of Finland, which
when I was last here was frozen solid, and the Finns were fearful
of tank attacks by sea. There is a blue shadow low on the water
which they tell us is the great Russian naval base of Kronstadt*
Further along another shadow they say is Peterherf*, which we have

98 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

visited. Just out of sight around the point they say is the smoke of
Leningrad.

When I was last at Tcrijoki, wc went on up to the lines and
crawled through a long communication trench in the bitter cold,
crouching as Russian machine-gun bullets whipped snow on its
sandbags. Now wc watch two Red Army boys who have left
their clothes on the beach and are splashing each other waist deep
in the water. The Field Marshal, resplendent in his correspondent’s
uniform, strolls toward the beach in the hope that they will stop
splashing to salute him.

Cupping my hand to my ear, I hear a faint, muffled roar, which
could either bi Russian artillery, pounding the Finns as they battle
desperately to hold Viipuri — or it could be only the wind.

Kirilov hands me a smoked sturgeon sandwich.

I have had a Soviet front trip.

Wc now turn back toward Leningrad but presently stop, for our
Russian hosts have a Finnish atrocity to show us. Our cars pull up
before the blackened walls of a once pleasant, not too pretentious
country house with huge elms and nice flower gardens. They
explain that it once belonged to a famous Russian artist called Ilya
Repin, long dead. When the Revolution came in 1917, he left
Russia to build this house — not too far from Russia but still on
Finnish soil. A few years before his death, he was induced to return
to Russia.

When the Red Army took this territory after the 1940 war,
they made this house into a museum, for Repin is an honoured figure
in Russian culture. The Finns then recaptured the region in 1941
but when they retreated last week, our hosts explain, they fired this
Russian museum and it burned to the ground. Undeniably true;
the ashes still smoke as we walk listlessly around.

The plump, blue-eyed Red Army colonel, who is with us poking
in the rubbish, picks up a newspaper. The interpreter reads for him
part of its feature article which is in fulsome praise of a British
general who, the Finnish writer predicts, will play a dashing role
in the eagerly expected Anglo-American invasion of Europe.

The colonel, a handsome and efficient product of Soviet educa-
tion, brings this in perplexity to me, as an authority on Finns.
Because why would these fascist hirelings, the Finns, be in possession
of a newspaper which praises a British general who is fighting their
brother fascists, the Germans ?

It is no use. He could not understand. And if he did, it would
only get him into trouble. I sec now why the Soviet government
goes to such pains to keep foreign newspapers away from them.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

So I only shake my head in pretended perplexity.

He is a very nice young colonel — certainly not over thirty-five —
handsome but with a fiat nose and a thick neck, and ordinarily
imperturbable. But that evening on the way back to Leningrad in
the lounge of Johnston’s private car — after the usual banquet and
while the waiters are clearing away the champagne glasses and
coffee cups — I get into a three-cornered argument with him.

He and Jennie, the interpreter, say that the Germans are sure to
yield soon, because they cannot endure the hardships to which
Russian soldiers are accustomed. But I say that nevertheless,
Germans are good soldiers.

They grudgingly agree, and then add that Americans and British
are also too soft and too fond of comfort to make the best of soldiers.
Jennie says she has travelled with Americans and she knows. They
are always complaining loudly of their comfort.

I agree that our soldiers complain, but maintain that when dis-
comfort is unavoidable, Americans will endure it as well as any
other nation. But when it comes through stupidity or inefficiency,
when through bad organization our troops are improperly fed or
clothed, then they yell their heads off. And I say we think this
makes for a better army.

At tliis point the young colonel, gleaming in the new red and
silver epaulettes which recently have been awarded Red Army
officers, says any such discussions make for bad discipline. That the
soldier’s only duty is to obey, and this is why the Red Army is
superior to any in the world. I argue that while in the American
army we also have discipline, we feel it is also the duty of a soldier
to use his head; that we encourage initiative in the field. This is a
little mixed in translation and the colonel begins to flush angrily.
He says there is, of course, also initiative in the Red Army.

So I smooth it all out with a speech to the effect that I’m sure
our armies are very much alike — that of course the American
Army has discipline and I am equally sure the Red Army hats
initiative. Then everybody is happy — at least on the surface.

There is no doubt < hat Jennie’s stories of Americans are accurate,
for the Soviet standard of living is a shock to anyone from the
Western countries. During the world depression, a number of young
English and American workers, intellectually inclined, took passage
to the Soviet Union because in this land there is always work for
everyone.

Swept away by the enthusiasm of the first few weeks, they sur-
rendered their British or American passports and took out Soviet
citizenship. Within a year practically all of them were back,

100

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

clamouring at the doors of their former embassies, pleading for help
to get out of Russia.

It was, of course, impossible. They had freely given up their
passports and with them their rights, and under any interpretation
of international law they were indistinguishable from any other
Soviet citizen, bound to their assigned jobs and with no hope of
leaving.

And when they exercised their former Anglo-Saxon rights to
protest about living conditions, they got the treatment meted out
to any other Soviet citizen who stirs up discontent: they were
arrested and thrown into labour battalions. All trace of them was lost
and no longer could they plead with their embassies in Moscow.

But one man’s family made persistent inquiries for news of
him, and his legation brought pressure to bear on the Russians for
at least some information. So after some months, it was announced
that the man had died in his labour camp, that according to law his
effects had been sold, and the legation was given a check for 15
roubles to be turned over to his next-of-kin abroad. These relatives,
however, would not believe that he was dead, and darkly suspected
that it was worth those 15 roubles to the Soviet government to be
rid of the tedious inquiries.

A note now on the Red Army: Americans frequently express
amazement that it should have been able to resist the German
attack, and feel that its exploits arc a miracle.

The Red Army is good. Russians make good soldiers. They arc
well disciplined, competently led, and equipped with good rifles and
plenty of hcavy^ artillery which they handle with skill. But this is
not all. Soldiers must be young, and the military strength of any
nation is determined not only by its total population, but by the
number of boys in their late teens and early twenties. Because of
the enormous Russian population and the swelling Slav birth rate,
in the Soviet Union 2,000,000 boys each year attain the age of
eighteen, as opposed to only 500,000 Germans — a four to one
superiority.

Considering only military effectives, the miracle is that any Ger-
man soldier was able to set foot on Russian soil. They were able
to penetrate to the suburbs of Moscow and Leningrad and range as
far as the Caucasus (1,500 miles from Berlin) not only because of
Russia’s technical poverty and the disorganized state of her industrial
development, but also because at the time the Red Army lacked
experienced officers. Her initial air force, for instance, could not
compare in quality with that of the Genxians. Much of it was
smashed in the first few weeks of fighting.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

lOI

If the Russian air force is primitive, this is no reflection on the
skill of Russian pilots, who rank among the world’s best. But
Russia lacks the slull to turn out good planes. Of all branches of any
air force, long-range bombers such as the British Lancaster and the
American Fortress and Liberator require the highest degree of
industrial skill for production and operation in large numbers. They
are almost totally absent in the Red Air Force.

The men who plan the Red Air Force have skilfully designed it
around the country’s many shortages; they have concentrated on
production of the Stormovik, a slow, low altitude strafing plane.
Since this efficient little tank buster usually operates at treetop level,
the Soviet fighters which protect it have no need for high altitude
equipment.

Of the 10,000 planes which America has delivered to the Soviet
Union the Russians like best the Bell Aircobra, which is a light,
low altitude, ground co-operation plane, similar in function to the
Stormovik. It is standard Red Air Force procedure immediately
to remove all high altitude flying equipment from most American
planes, replacing the weight with extra ammunition.

Lacking night fighters and radar, Soviet targets within range of
the Luftwaffe are particularly vulnerable to night bombing, and
the standard Russian method of defence is ground fire from anti-
aircraft batteries, such as was used to protect Moscow. However,
lacking radar to guide their fire, the gunners can shoot only at the
sound, which is a rough indication not of where the bomber is, but
where it was several seconds ago. Therefore, to be effective, bat-
teries must be massed about the target, vomiting continuous
fountains of fire during a raid, an expensive procedure.

One day we inspected the Moscow exhibit of captured enemy
war equipment. It was a beautifully arranged display open to the
public, and included everything from Italian uniforms to the newest
and biggest in German Tiger tanks. New, it should be said, only
to the Soviet Union, for they had been introduced in Africa to
match comparable British and American equipment, and after the
fall of Tunis they were brought to Russia. Still wearing their desert
camouflage they were captured in the Crimea.

After inspecting all this, I asked Jennie, an unusually intelligent
and well-educated Soviet girl, if they had any captured German
radar. She had never heard the word. Thinking the Russians used
another, I described it as an electric device which detected airplanes
at night or through fog without the use of sound. But she had
heard nothing of this and went off to consult the general in charge.

Returning, she said he knew what I was talking about; that such
devices existed, were used by the Germans and had even been

102

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

captured but they were kept in another place for study and were
not on view. In the Western world, every bright fifteen-year-old
knows the general principles of radar. But two hundred million
people in the Soviet Union will probably never hear of it until it
can be manufactured there.

America’s most vital contribution to Russia was not planes but
trucks. Of course Russian factories have provided most of the Red
Army’s motor transport. But this huge agricultural nation is in-
capable of producing enough to fit the size of its army or its sprawling
geography. It was for want of modern transport that, when fast-
moving German columns punched their 1941 lines in a dozen places,
the Russians had to fall back in disorder, leaving thousands of
precious heavy artillery pieces and hundreds of thousands of prisoners
in German hands.

But by 1942 American trucks began flowing into Russia in
volume. Without these it would have been impossible for the
Russians to have followed up their major victory at Stalingrad in
1943. Stopping an enemy advance and removing his armies from
your soil are two different problems. It does no good to get the
enemy on the run unless you can pursue him. Without these trucks,
the Red Army would still be stuck in its own bottomless Ukrainian
mud. With them it was able to pursue, and when the Germans made
a stand at a river or a provincial city, to deal the next sledge hammer
artillery-infantry smash which knocked loose the Wchrmacht and
kept it continually off balance and retreating.

The top Russians do not underestimate the value of American
aid. If the lesser ones seem unappreciative, it is only because, in
spite of vigorous protests such as that of Admiral Standlcy, they
have not been told the extent of it.

For instance, the correspondents tell of a front trip on which they
were being escorted through reconquered territory by a Red Army
lieutenant. Far down the road, they saw a jeep in a ditch. Russia
makes no comparable car, but quantities of jeeps have arrived
through Lend-Lease, with instructions in Russian stencilled in
Detroit, and are familiar now all over the Soviet Union.

“ Is that a German jeep or an American jeep?” the correspondent
asked.

“Neither one,” said the lieutenant, “it’s a Russian jeep. Your
American jeeps are too flimsy to use on these roads at the front.
Five thousand kilometres and they fall to pieces. Here we use only
Russian jeeps.”

The war’s climax came in 1943 with the successful defence of
Stalingrad. The Germans had by this time been dealt a crippling
blow to their air force in the great battles with the British in AfHca.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

103

Russians point out scornfully that this African campaign involved
few men ; however, it required masses of highly complicated trans-
port and machines.

Furthermore, the RAF and the Eighth Air Force in England were
by then pounding German industry, and the Germans had to strip
the Russian front of Messerschmitts to defend their home factories,
so that for the first time the Russians had superiority in the air.
Lend-Lease, including thousands of trucks, was now pouring in, the
German lines of communication were perilously extended, and for
the first time it was possible for a Russian army to move quickly out
to envelop and cut off a German army, as theirs had been enveloped
so many times before.

After that, Germany’s superiority in weapons was slowly reduced
by Allied air poundings, while Russia’s supply increased. Her own
factories behind the Urals were working; new ones were equipped
with American machine tools. By the summer of 1944 at least
half of the Red Army’s road transportation was being supplied by
210,000 American military trucks, 40,000 jeeps and 30,000 other
military motor vehicles. She also had 5,600 American tanks and
tank destroyers, and was using 8225,000,000 worth of machine tools
— a total of 85,750,000,000 worth of Lend-Lease aid. At last
Russia’s crushing superiority in man power could become effective.

But as the Anglo-American offensive opened in France, the
Soviet government loyally kept her agreement, made at Teheran, to
start a drive from the east. In order to do this, she was drafting for
front-line duty men who had already been discharged with wounds
and others previously rejected for serious physical defects — the
dregs of any nation’s power. But the Soviet government kept faith.

One reason for the success of the Red Army is that the breach
between its old-line, experienced officers and the Communist Party
is now completely healed. Originally the Red Army was burdened
with a system of political commissars whose duty it was to watch
the officers, keep the army politically sound and under the Kremlin’s
thumb, and whose authority could under certain circumstances
exceed that of the unit’s regular commander.

This division has now gone. The political commissars have been
absorbed in the army, with regular military rank and duties.
Political education continues, but not to the neglect of military
training. The political commissar is now the official pepper-upper —
the morale officer of his unit. Membership in the Communist
Party always carries heavy responsibility, and this continues in the
army. Party members are supposed to set an example to the others
— not only in efficiency but in bravery under fire, and as consequence
the Party has had more than its share of casualties. Its membership,

104 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

formerly 2,500,000, was increased to 4,000,000, but many of them
have killed.

But the Party is strong in the army, and a man who wished to
advance must usually join. A Russian general will not be removed
because he has neglected this, but the Party must be sure his views
are sound. It is much more solidly welded to the army than before,
although you still get occasional old-line officers who scoff at
political commissars.

The army’s achievements have given it a great pride in itself
and some little contempt for the outside world. Reporters say that
when it invaded Rumania, the officers laughed at the uniformed
doormen, and had only scorn for the beggars and lx)otblacks who
solicited them.

The Moscow correspondents have a deep respect for the com-
petence of its leadership and often, when irritated by the stupidity
of a Russian civilian official, they would remind each other that
some of this was temporary, as all the country’s really intelligent
and efficient men were in the Red Army.

SEVEN

Returning to Moscow, I have my first experience with Soviet
censorship. I submit a news story on the Leningrad trip, which
includes the sentence that “The Finns were fighting hard for
Viipuri, which prior to 1939 was Finland's second largest city." The
censor passed the story except for the italicized words. They contain
no military' information — nothing which is not in every child’s
geography.

But Russia has the most rigid political censorship in the civilized
world. The reporters explain why this cut in my copy was made.
When the Soviet Union claims territory, no Moscow story may
mention the fact that it once belonged to another nation. And this
goes not only for the Karelian Isthmus but also for the Baltic States.
They arc now parts of the Soviet Union and no hint can be cabled
from Moscow that they were ever independent republics.

In other fields the censorship goes much further and makes no
attempt at consistency, except on a day-to-day basis. Early in the
war the Soviets were proud of their scorch^ earth policy, and
Red Star severely criticized American generals for not burning
Manila before we evacuated.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS IO5

Now, however, they are preparing a bill for property damage to
be presented to the Germans and since this began, no mention or
hint of “scorched Russian earth” has been permitted to leave the
Moscow censorship. Presumably, the great Dnieper Dam suffered
only from German vandalism.

Moscow correspondents say the most severe political censorship
was imposed on their stories of the Katyn Forest Massacre, which
is not surprising because this subject is one of the most delicate of
the war, strung around a plot as exciting as any detective “who-
done-it.”

Katyn Forest is near Smolensk and it is the grave of some 10,000
Poles, mostly officers, who were shot in the back of the head. On
these facts everyone agrees. But on whether this slaughter of help-
less war prisoners was done by Russians or Germans, there is
violent disagreement and some evidence both ways.

To understand the complexity of the case, a little history is neces-
sary. When, in 1939, the Germans and Russians divided Poland,
the Russian share of the loot included more than 180,000 prisoners
of war, of whom 10,000 were officers. A few were generals. The
most distinguished of these, including General Anders, were con-
fined to Moscow’s Lubianka prison. The rest of the 10,000 officers
were sent to three prison camps in the Russian towns of Starobielsk,
Kozielsk, and Ostaszkov. These camps housed twelve Polish gen-
erals, sixty-nine colonels, seventy-two lieutenant colonels and in all
5,131 regular army officers and 4,096 reserve officers. Few of the
last had been captured in combat. Most of them had not yet been
called up for duty, but, when Russia occupied her half of Poland,
obeyed the Soviet summons to a.ssemble.

The Polish officers were reasonably well treated at the three
camps until April, 1940, when the Soviets began evacuating them,
telling the men they might be sent back to their homes. They left
in groups of from twenty to sixty every few days during April
and early May, first being loaded into prison cars. As to what
became of them after that, the Poles have a few clues. Most of the
10,000 vanished from the earth except for 400 who were finally
taken to a camp at Gryazovets. There they were allowed to write
letters to their families. But from the answers they received, inquir-
ing as to the fate of their comrades, it soon became clear that of the
thousands of officers who had been at the three camps, they alone
were writing letters home.

More than a year passed and on June 22, 1941, Hitler attacked
Russia. The Polish government in London immediately offered the
hand of friendship to the Soviets, suggesting the formation from
prisoners of war in Russian hands, of a Polish army. The Soviet

io6

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

govcnimcnt quickly accepted. General Anders was released from
his prison cell, installed in a comfortable hotel room with apologies,
and with Soviet co-operation began forming his army,

Poles, released from prison camps all over the Soviet Union,
began flocking to his headquarters, but there were almost no officers.

General Anders was at first not alarmed, believing that they
probably had been transferred to some far-away Arctic labour camp
and presently would turn up, as thousands of others were doing.
But as months went by and not one additional officer reported he
became concerned.

In November of 1941, Polish Ambassador Kot got an interview
with Stalin to discuss this perplexing problem. The Marshal
appeared genuinely astonished.

“ Have they not iDeen released yet ! ” he said, and in Kot’s presence,
rang up the NKVD and said the prisoners who had been in those
three camps should be released at once, because “the amnesty
applies to all Poles. They, too, should be released.”

A month passed, during which the Poles were collecting, from
the 400 survivors of the three camps, a list of the names of their
missing brother officers. On December 4, when Stalin received
Generals Sikorski and Anders, they took with them an incomplete
list of 4,500 names. This time Stalin expressed no surprise or indig-
nation. The Poles felt he answered evasively, suggesting that the
10,000 officers might have returned to German occupied Poland or
fled over the Manchurian border. Knowing how closely the NKVD
supervises all travel in Russia, it was difficult for the two Polish
generals to believe that such a large number of officers could have
accomplished this journey undetected, and Anders told Stalin as
much, venturing the counter-suggestion that perhaps the NKVD,
short of labour, was still holding them in some far-away Siberian
camp. “If they haven’t released any such prisoners,” said Stalin,
“we will compel them to do so.” And picking up his telephone, he
called General Pamfilov at NKVD headquarters, again issuing orders
to release all Poles who had ever been in the three camps.

More time passed but not an officer turned up. However, dis-
turbing rumours circulated among the Poles. Among the 400
survivors there was a belief that the other officers had been sent in
the direction of Smolensk, In one of the cars in which the 400 were
evacuated, they had seen, scrawled on the wall, a hasty message in
Polish. They guessed it had been left behind by a certain Polish
Colonel Kubya, who had been evacuated ahead of the 400, and who
had promised, before he left, to try to leave a clue as to where
they were being taken. This message read, “The second stop after
Smolensk, we are being taken from the cars and loaded into trucks.”

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

107

This, however, meant little. Katyn Forest is seventeen kilometers
beyond Smolensk, but the 400 had then never heard of Katyn
Forest.

But a really disturbing rumour began to circulate. It seemed that,
a few months before the German attack on Russia, the NKVD
had assembled several Polish staff officers, including a Colonel
Berling, and suggested to them that possibly a Polish army might
be organized to fight the Germans. At a conference with Russian
NKVD officials, Beria and Merkulov, Colonel Berling agreed, pro-
vided it was organized “irrespective of political creeds,’" and then
added that, at the three officers’ prison camps, “we have excellent
army cadres.” Whereupon, Merkulov answered quickly, with some
embarrassment, “No, not these men. We have made a great
blunder in connection with them.” Only rumours, perhaps, but
they disturbed the Poles.

But the Poles kept their misgivings out of print, anxious to pre-
serv^e friendly relations w'ith their new Soviet ally. Considerable
time passed, and then on April 13, 1943, the German radio an-
nounced that in Katyn Forest, near Smolensk, which they then
held, they had discovered mass graves of about 10,000 Polish
officers, each killed with a bullet through the back of the head. They
said that Russian peasants in the vicinity had told them that these
prisoners of war had been murdered by the NKVD in the spring
of 1940, giving dates which would correspond closely to the time
the prison camps had been evacuated. The Germans also claimed
that letters and papers found in the clothing, as well as the con-
dition of the bodies, indicated that the men had been murdered in
the spring of 1940. According to the German story, the peasants
had delayed showing them the graves because of their great fear
of the NKVD. Names announced over the German radio cor-
responded with those of Polish officers missing from the three camps.
This German announcement created much confusion among the
Poles.

Two days later, Radio Moscow took cognizance of the German
charges in a bitter broadcast in which it said that “these German
lies reveal the fate of Polish officers whom the Germans employed
in construction work in that region.” The next day, April 16, the
Russian news agency, Tass, issued a communique explaining that
these Polish prisoners, who had been employed by the Russians on
construction work west of Smolensk, had been captured by the
Germans during the Soviet retreat from that region in the summer
of 1941.

But this explanation did not satisfy all Poles. Their officers had
been evacuated from the three prison camps in April, 1940. Ever

I08 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

since the Russo-German break in June of 1941, the Polish govern-
ment had been trying to get from the Russians some hint as to
where they had been taken. Only after this German broadcast do
they learn from the Soviet government that the officers had been
taken to the Katyn Forest region, with the additional statement that
in 1941 they were captured and murdered by the Germans.

Why had the Soviet government let them hunt and hope for
nearly two years?

However, the Polish government in London was cautious. On
April 17, the day after the Tass explanation, the Polish Cabinet
issued a statement denouncing the “profoundly hypocriticar*
indignation of the Germans, who had been guilty of even greater
crimes against Poles than this which they charged against the
Russians. At the same time, they announced they were going to
ask the International Red Cross at Geneva to investigate.

But on April 21, Radio Moscow blasted the Polish government
saying that such a proposal would be “collaborating with Hitler,**
and attacked General Sikorski, its Premier, saying that his appeal
to Geneva “proved how influential are the pro- Hitler elements in
the Polish government.”

The next day Berlin announced the discovery of a third mass
grave at Katyn. On the day following, the Red Cross in Geneva
said it “acceded in principle** to the request for an investigation,
but could only act if Russia, also a party to the dispute, would
join in the request.

On April 26, the Soviet government broke off relations with the
Polish government in London, and set up in Moscow her own
“Union of Polish Patriots” which, according to the London Polish
government, Wiis made up of Polish Communists unknown to the
people of Poland.

However, anxious to conciliate Moscow, the London Polish
government, on May i, withdrew its request for a Red Cross investi-
gation. Berlin, which had agreed to the investigation, went ahead
witli a propaganda field-day of its own. The Germans invited a
committee of twelve distinguished European experts to examine the
bodies at Katyn. It should be noted, however, that of the twelve,
only one, Dr. Navillc, Professor of Forensic Medicine at Geneva,
was from a neutral country. The others were from universities in
Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Holland, Rumania,
Slovakia, The Protectorate, and Hungary— countries either allied
to, or occupied by, the Germans.

These professors were either deceived or convinced. They issued
a unanimous rcp)ort to the effect that the Polish oflScers had been
dead for three years (which would date the massacre in 1940 when

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS lOQ

the Russians held Katyn) as proved by the condition of the bodies
as well as by papers found on them and from the testimony of
natives.

However, the German triumph was short-lived, for the Red
Army presently reoccupied Katyn, and on January 22, 1944, issued
a communiqu^ saying that a Soviet investigating commission had
been called to settle, once and for all, the Katyn Forest dispute.

It should be remarked that if the German Commission was a
90 per cent Axis party, the Russian Commission was a 100 per
cent Soviet picnic. Their experts — distinguished Russian academi-
cians — determined that the Germans, following their occupation of
Smolensk, had carried out the mass shootings in the autumn of 1941,
and in 1943, “calculating to set Russians and Poles at loggerheads,
tried to ascribe this crime to the Soviet government.” The Russians
charged that in the spring of 1943 the Germans had even brought
to Katyn Forest, Polish bodies from other districts, and had used
500 Russian prisoners of war in the work of removing from the
Polish bodies all documents which would incriminate the Nazis
and substituting documents which would tend to incriminate the
Russians, after which the Germans had shot tlie Soviet war prisoners.

The Russians also cross-questioned those local peasants who had
previously testified that they had held back information from the
Germans in fear of the Russian NKVD. These peasants now
testified that they had signed statements for the Germans only
because they feared the Gestapo.

The evidence of German guilt gathered by the Soviet Commission
is detailed, complete, damning, and it answers all questions but
this one: if the Polish officers were still alive in the summer of 1941
and could be captured by the Germans, why were the Poles not
told this at once ? Why were important Polish government officials
allowed to go wild-goose-chasing all over the Soviet Union for
nearly two years in search of their army’s officers, when the Russians
knew the men were already in German hands?

When the Russians retook Katyn Forest, they invited the Moscow
correspondents to inspect the graves of these Poles, murdered,
they insisted, by the Nazis. Most of the Anglo-American corre-
spondents — trained obser\^crs — believed even before they went that
the Germans had done the killing.

It was difficult to say with certainty when they had been shot
but an observant reporter noticed that one Polish body was clad
in long, heavy underwear, and mentioned it to the Soviet doctor in
charge. The doctor remarked that most of the bodies wore either
heavy underwear, or overcoats, or both.

That seemed to point to the theory that these Poles must have

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

been shot during April, 1940, as the Germans claimed, rather than
in August and September, 1941, after the Germans moved in, as
the Soviet government was contending.

When this point was raised with the Soviet conducting officers,
there was considerable confusion and the Russians finally argued
that the climate of Poland is uncertain, so that fur overcoats and
long underwear might be worn in September.

The reporters preferred to believe the stories of their Allies in
which most evidence pointed toward German guilt. Even so,
Moscow censorship struck out all the qualifying phrases.

If a reporter would write “/ am not a medical expert but doctors
say the condition of these bodies proves they were murdered by
the Germans,” the censorship would strike out the qualifying phrase
(which I have italicized), leaving only the bare charge.

Also striken out were all phrases indicating any doubt in the
correspondents* minds — such words as “in my opinion,” “probably,”
or “evidence we were shown would tend to prove,” with the result
that the stories as received in America were as firmly damning of
the Germans as Pravda^s editorials.

The truth is that no one but the Russians and the Germans —
and some Poles — know what went on in Poland and the Baltic States
between September, 1939, and June, 1941 — the period of the Russo-
German pact, because reporters from all neutral countries were
rigorously excluded and foreign consuls expelled. The censorship
vacuum can only be filled by rumours, reports from the Polish
underground to its London government and an occasional whisper
which reaches Moscow.

This is equally true of the Baltic States, Estonia, Latvia, and
Lithuania. Although this territory had been a part of the Czarist
Empire for 200 years, the three small nations preserved their identi-
ties as did the Finns and the Poles. They seized the opportunity
to break away from Russia in 1917, becoming part of the cordon
sanitaire of buffer states which French diplomats set up to insulate
Europe against Bolshevism.

The people of the tlircc Baltic countries arc thrifty and orderly,
and they soon established a standard of living comparable to Scandi-
navia, with whom they had many tics. They were also inordinately
fearful of Russia — a feeling they shared with most small countries
having a common border with the Soviet Union.

In the summer of 1939, when the Anglo-French Military Mission
was in Moscow trying to negotiate an alliance with the Soviet
Union, one of the Soviet demands was the right, under certain cir-
cumstances, to occupy the three Baltic States.

The British demurred. When I was in London in February of

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

III

1940, an intelligent young man in their foreign office gave me their
position.

“Here we are/’ he said, “supposedly defending the rights of small
European nations. We could hardly start by delivering three of
them to the Russians as a price for their alliance. We have to
consider opinion in the States. What would your people have said
to that?”

“They would have been in favour of almost anything you had to
do to win the war without their having to get in,” I said, and I
still think I was right.

Hitler, however, had no such qualms, or need to consider Ameri-
can sympathy for small nations, so he signed with the Kremlin. In
a matter of weeks, Russia’s demands were dispatched to the Baltic
States. The Red Armies moved in to garrison all strategic points and
all foreigners were moved out. Once they were there, events moved
rapidly. The three governments resigned, to be replaced by Com-
munist cabinets which immediately ordered plebiscites on the ques-
tion of whether they would petition for union with the U.S.S.R.
It was then announced that the people had voted yes by majorities
of about ten to one. But no neutral observers were present, and
the Red Army was the only witness.

The immediate effect, according to Moscow observers, was a
flash of prosperity in Moscow. The Baltic States had been prosper-
ous, and in Moscow stores there appeared well-made, smart-
looking shoes, print dresses, men’s suits, countless shiny items of
consumption goods and minor luxuries, which indicated that the
living standard of those prosperous little countries was being equal-
ized with the drab Soviet average.

There was no other direct news, but many rumours.

To understand why the Baltic States and later Poland’s eastern
provinces voted by such staggering majorities for union with the
Soviet government, it is necessary to know the meaning of the term
“social engineering,” as first coined and later practised by the
Communist Party.

Communists recognize that in newly occupied areas many
individuals cannot adapt themselves to the Soviet system. They
learned this during their own civil war. So each such province
constitutes a problem in “social engineering.”

Least likely to adapt themselves are those individuals who have
functioned successfully under the preceding regime, particularly
the people beyond school age. The Soviet blacklist includes all
who have held positions of trust in the former state — governors,
members of parliament, state or municipal clerks and employees,
local police or firontier guards, and, of course, large landowners as

110

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

been shot during April, 1940, as the Germans claimed, rather than
in August and September, 1941, after the Germans moved in, as
the Soviet government was contending.

The reporters preferred to believe the stories of their Allies in
which most evidence pointed toward German guilt. Even so,
Moscow censorship struck out all the qualifying phrases.

If a reporter would write “/ am not a medical expert but doctors
say the condition of these bodies proves they were murdered by
the Germans,** the censorship would strike out the qualifying phrase
(which I have italicized), leaving only the bare charge.

Also striken out were all phrases indicating any doubt in the
correspondents* minds — such words as “in my opinion,** “probably,**
or “evidence we were shown would tend to prove,’* with the result
that the stories as received in America were as firmly damning of
the Germans as Pravda's editorials.

This is equally true of the Baltic States, Estonia, Latvia, and
Lithuania. Although this territory had been a part of the Czarist
Empire for 200 years, the three small nations preserved their identi-
ties as did the Finns and the Poles. They seized the opportunity
to break away from Russia in 1917, becoming part of the cordon
sanitaire of buflfer states which French diplomats set up to insulate
Europe against Bolshevism.

The people of the three Baltic countries arc thrifty and orderly,
and they soon established a standard of living comparable to Scandi-
navia, with whom they had many tics. They were also inordinately
fearful of Russia — a feeling they shared with most small countries
having a common border with the Soviet Union.

The British demurred. When I was in London in February of

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

III

1940^ an intelligent young man in their foreign office gave me their
position.

“Here we are,” he said, “supposedly defending the rights of small
European nations. We could hardly start by delivering three of
them to the Russians as a price for their alliance. We have to
consider opinion in the States. What would your people have said
to that?”

“They would have been in favour of almost anything you had to
do to win the war without their having to get in,” I said, and I
still think I was right.

There was no other direct news, but many rumours.

Least likely to adapt themselves are those individuals who have
functioned successfully under the preceding regime, particularly
the people beyond school age. The Soviet blacklbt includes all
who have held positions of trust in the former state — governors,
members of parliament, state or municipal clerks and employees,
local police or frontier guards, and, of course, large landowners as

112

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

well as conspicuously successful manufacturers^ merchants, and
farmers. Prominent on the list are officials in trade unions or politi-
cal parties other than the Communist Party, Socialist leaders being
held in even lower esteem than the landed gentry as traitors to the
working class.

The Soviets wisely conclude that the very fact that these people
have been leaders under the old order will make them, at the least,
undependable citizens of the new. Consequently, the leaders are
arrested for deportation immediately, the smaller fry being rounded
up at a more leisurely rate during the ensuing months.

Rarely are they shot, for social engineering is a science with no
place for the emotion of hate. Shooting can be wasteful, therefore
the members of the classes to be removed are customarily sentenced
to ten years in a Soviet labour camp.

Meanwhile plans for elections proceed. With all such “enemies
of the people” disposed of, the Soviet propaganda apparatus moves
in, the Red Army taking a prominent part. The Communist Party
organizes local workers’ and peasants’ committees, which nominate
candidates for delegates to the regional Popular Assembly.

Shortly after the Soviet occupation of Eastern Poland, such
elections were held in Polish Ruthenia and in the Polish Ukraine.
Pravda boasted of the Red Army’s work, saying that “thousands of
its men and officers carried on an immense political work among the
population. The soldier- political-worker was everywhere.”

Only one candidate runs for each office and he is Communist-
approved. A tremendous effort is made to get out the vote, with
Party workers from Moscow and Red Army soldiers touring the
countryside in trucks. Banners, parades, and speeches imply that
anyone who fails to go to the polls thereby declares himself an
enemy ol' the new state.

Most curious of all, from our Western standpoint, is the fact that
soldiers of the occupying Red Army arc permitted to vote in these
elections. Once at the polls, the voter’s identification card is checked
by the Communist election officials, and the voter is handed a
ballot. He is told that he may cither drop this in the ballot box
or he may retire behind a screen and make changes in it. He does
not need to be told that if he docs step behind the screen, this fact
will be remembered. Few changes arc made.

The assembly made up of delegates so elected, meets a few days
later. In occupied Poland such assemblies passed standardize
resolutions taking over the authority of the old government, request-
ing admission to the Soviet Union, confiscating large estates, and
praising “our great leader, Stalin.”

In relation to the economy, social engineering makes rapid

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS II3

changes. In Poland’s eastern provinces the old Polish zloty was
pegged to the Soviet rouble at a figure most advantageous to the
hundreds of thousands of Soviet visitors with the result that the
shops were quickly stripped both of luxury items and of staples.
After a short period, tlie zloty was declared worthless.

State-owned stores were substituted for private shops which were
taxed out of existence, and although the land was not immediately
collectivized, each farmer was notified what share of his produce
must be sold to the state at the low official price. In place of the old
Polish system of free labour unions, a new system was installed under
which a worker who is constantly late or who quits his job faced
several years in a prison labour camp.

In addition to the 180,000 war prisoners, an estimated 1,500,000
civilians were removed from Poland in the early part of 1940, as a
part of the social engineering programme.

These people were moved in transports similar to ones I saw in
the Leningrad freight yard and which had been used to move
Russian factory workers back of the Urals. A Soviet transport is an
ordinary boxcar with two small, high, barred windows, a stove
with its pipe protruding through the roof, and a hole chopped
in the floor for a toilet. Between thirty and forty deportees are
locked in each car, which is almost the size of the famous French
“40 and 8” troops transports of the last war.

Most deportation round-ups were conducted by the NKVD late
at night, when the population is most docile. The people arc told
whatever story will make them most amenable to the order. For
example, the wife of a Polish officer who had been killed at Katyn
Forest (although she did not then know it) was wakened, told that
special arrangements had been made for her to join her husband if
she would pack and be ready to leave in an hour. After dressing
herself, her small son and packing her bag, she arrived on her front
step — where she found all the other women on her street also waiting
with packed bags and realized that the journey ahead was not a
special dispensation to her.

It is also an axiom of social engineering to separate families, not
as an act of needless cruelty, but because men are suited for stronger,
more rugged work than arc their wives and daughters, so heads of
families are sent to special camps. But if they are told this at the
outset, the emotional scenes which follow cause needless delay.
Consequently, the only instruction given by the NKVD in the
home is that the head of the family is to pack his toilet articles
separately, since men will go to another place for sanitary inspection.
Therefore, not until the family is on the station platform do they
discover that the head of the family is locked with other men in

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

II4

a car sq>arate from those into which they arc locked with women
and children. It may be several days before they learn that the men
arc now cn route to an unknown labour camp. It was the practice to
send men to lumber and mining camps in northern Siberia, while
women and children did better in the brick yards and co-operative
farms in southern Kazakstan.

There was much unavoidable confusion. Although the cars were
supposed to be opened daily, sometimes through neglect they stood
for days on sidings, and when they finally were opened it was
nearly always necessary to remove a number of bodies of those
who had died from general weakness induced by thirst or cold.
But none of this was deliberate, and in such large mass population
movements, oversights arc inevitable.

If the new colonists were often not welcome on the co-operatives
to which they were assigned, this is not because the Russians are
heartless; but in Kazakstan, for example, the co-operatives were too
often only a group of mud huts on an arid plain, where there were
already too many mouths to feed. Newcomers were a burden on
these struggling communities, as they would be in our dust bowl
settlements, and they were further resented because the remnants
of their belongings were finer than anything the natives had seen.
Yet many of these tragedies had eventual happy endings, for follow-
ing Hitler’s attack on Russia and Russia’s temporary reconciliation
with the Polish government in London, the captive Poles were
released and allowed to leave Russia with General Anders’s army.

Russia’s postwar plan for Poland is not necessarily a fair sample
of the governmental set-up she will demand in her other border
states. Poland is a special case. The Poles have undergone so much
social engineering that a truly free and democratic Poland might
not be as friendly to Russia as the Soviet Union feels it has a right
to expect on its frontiers after winning a war.

It is unlikely that Russian armies, occupying other neighbouring
states, will practise social engineering to anything like the degree
that it was applied to Poland and the Baltic States. These things
were done in tne honeymoon period of the Stalin-Hitler pact, when
Molotov was proudly proclaiming that Poland had forever vanished
firom the map, and a Russian alliance with the “war-mongering
capitalist democracies” was unthinkable. It is trite to say that
today the Kremlin’s thinking has gready changed.

The science of social engineering cannot be deflected by personal
tragedies, since its objeedves are the building of a strong, loyal
state. And it should be said in defence of the Soviet government
that under similar circumstances it has treated its own people
exaedy as it did the Poles.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS II5

Soviet social engineering as applied to Poland and the Baltic
States has a purpose which we can understand even though we
do not approve; and it should not be mentioned in the same breath
with the savage and senseless butcheries which the Germans were
perpetrating at Lubin on their side of the partition line.

It is easy to see why Soviet censorship is severe in matters that
involve social engineering. A less harmful manifestation is its sensi-
tiveness to any hint that Russia might be radical. A reporter, de-
scribing an abrupt alteration in certain Soviet methods, referred to
""revolutionary changes,” but the timid censor struck out “revolu-
tionary.” They also don’t like references to the Communist Party,
feeling it is unpopular in the outside world.

This type of censorship was imposed on a cable sent from Moscow
by a correspondent concerning Maurice Thorez, leader of the French
Communists, w^ho spoke over Radio Moscow to occupied France.
I give below a paragraph from this cable, and the italicized phrases
are those w'hich the Soviet censor struck out :

“Maurice Thorez was giving the French underground its in-
structions by radio from Moscow, but he spoke as an individual
and not in the name 0/ the Communist Party, He urged them not to
indulge in revolutionary uprisings but to submit to the Allied High
Command. He also discussed the postwar role of the Communist
Party in France.”

The censor refused to let reporters say that Thorez never attended
the large diplomatic receptions in Moscow, that he was the father
of a child born there, or that his exclusion from Algiers by the
French Committee of Liberation had been a blow to his health.
The censors admitted it was true, “but it can’t come from
here.”

If, in the course of a new story, a prominent Russian is identified
as “a member of the Communist Party” this fact is almost always
stricken out by the censor.

“Listen !” a correspondent once shouted through the wicket win-
dow, “are you proud that a man is a member of the Party, or are
you ashamed of it? What the hell is this anyway, the Dies Com-
mittee?” In this instance he got the phrase reinstated.

Ordinarily, however, the Soviet blue pencil is not a “consultative
censorship” — you cannot argue with the censors or give them your
reason, nor will they give you theirs, when they hand back a
mutilated cable.

Their reply is always, “We can’t discuss this with you. It’s been
decided.”

If the correspondents persist and become importunate, or show
a resentment to which Russians are not accustomed in dealing with

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

ll6

their own subservient press, the censor will say sternly, “ Mr. Smith,
I must remind you that you are in the Soviet Union ! The reminder
is usually unnecessary.

The censorship, of course, excludes everything which might give
the outside world an unfavourable impression of conditions within
Russia. A corrcs[X)ndcni may not give the size of the monthly bread
or meat ration allotted to each citizen, nor may he say that favoured
classes get special rations. He may not say that outside the meagre
scope of rationing, prices for the necessities of life bought on the
free market have become wildly inflationary, surpassing anything
dreamed of in the American black market. Nor for months could
he say that the government last spring re-opened its commercial
stores where people may buy — without ration cards — these same free
market commodities at the same fantastic prices.

One explanation is that Russians arc a proud people, ashamed
to have such facts proclaimed to the world. But the result is that
the world has only a meagre idea of the sacrifices the Russian
people are making. Likewise, they conceal exactly how many
iiundreds of thousands of Leningraders starved during the siege.

The foregoing illustrate definitely established policies of the
Soviet censorsliip. There are in addition its occasional whimsies.
A minor bureaucrat in that office will occasionally strike out a
whole paragraph from the story of an experienced correspondent
with the remark that he found it ‘"uninteresting,” or considered it
“unimportant.”

A story was recently submitted for censorship in two parts. The
second half was assigned to a competent girl who passed it with-
out alteration. But the first half fell into the hands of a dull youth
who struck out the last three paragraphs. Usually no explanation
is given; in this case, he deigned to remark that he thought the
story ended better without them.

Correspondents who resent the censorship most say that fully
half their troubles come not from the rules but from the censors*
stupidity, or their limited knowledge of languages, and complain
that all the intelligent men in the Soviet Union are now in the
Red Army. One censor, handling a story which described Ilya
Ehrenburg, Russia’s famous war writer, as a “Francophile,” struck
out this word and reproved the correspondent: “How could you
say such a thing? During tlie Spanish War Ehrenburg was with the
Loyalists !”

When he finally understood that the English word “Franco-

g hile” means one who loves not the Spanish dictator but the French
Lepublic, he let it pass.

Censorship in the Soviet Union is handled by a minor bureau of

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS II7

the Foreign Office and in charge of a functionary^ called Apollon
Petrov, a former professor of Chinese history at the University of
Leningrad and also a former Soviet Consul at Chungking.

Most modem countries maintain bureaus like the British and
French Ministries of Information, the American Office of War
Information or the German Propaganda Ministry, which make an
effort to supply foreign correspondents with any standard informa-
tion about their countries the reporter may need.

The Soviet Union possesses no such facilities, and Moscow cor-
respondents say that the avowed function of the Petrov Bureau is
not to help them but to prevent them from getting news, although
occasionally it telephones them at three o’clock in the morning
promising an important announcement, and they hurry over to
receive a mimeographed statement that in the Socialist Soviet
Republic of Uzbekistan, infant mortality has, in spite of the world
struggle against the fascist aggressors, dropped this month by 1 1‘ ,
per cent in comparison with the same month of 1943.

Petrov, in particular, and his assistant censors in general (excepting
one girl, who, reporters say, is pleasant mannered and intelligent)
are despised by the Anglo-American Press with an intensity which
goes far beyond the bounds of reason.

One correspondent, in a fit of exasperation, ripped in half a large
map hanging on Petrov’s wall. Another, when# handed back a story
badly mutilated, tore it into bits, and accounts then differ as to
whether he laid the pieces on Petrov’s desk or tossed them in his
face. The Russian Foreign Office can truthfully say that no other
nation would tolerate such behaviour by correspondents.

The correspondents can truthfully say that nowhere else in the
world does such provocation for it exist. They would not mind
the vitamin-starved diet or the bleak living conditions of wartime
Russia if they were not treated as tolerated spies — cut off from any
real human contact with a people they admire and herded into the
institutionalized life of the Hotel Mctropole, talking only with each
other or with the small diplomatic colony, reading only the con-
trolled Russian press, and then having their daily work messed about
by what under any circumstances would be the world’s most rigid
political censorship, and which is in addition in the hands of men
who are often mediocre.

Consequently, Petrov has become the focus of their frustrations.
Since many of them are fer\Tnt admirers of the Russian people and
have a keen interest in their social experiment, they have come to
believe that if only he were removed, all would be well.

I came for only a brief stay; not lon^ enough to get caught up
in this whirl of misunderstanding. My career did not depend on

Il8 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

trying to force the truth through Soviet censorship. I filed only
one story and could consider the cuts with some detachment.

I met Petrov and found him businesslike and courteous. Perhaps
because he readily granted my routine request I judged him intel-
ligent. I felt that he was only carrying out long-established policies
of the Kremlin.

And if his underlings often make stupid mistakes, one of the
basic reasons is the language barrier. For Russians, owing to their
enforced isolation, are almost as bad linguists as Americans. Only a
few have more than a smattering of any European language other
than their own. I doubt that the Foreign Office could assemble a
more competent staff in wartime.

Russians, who sincerely believe that their Daily Worker is the
only free paper in America, and probably think that their Moscow
censorship brings order into an otherwise chaotic scramble of capital-
ist distortions, certainly must regard the foreign correspondents, and
in particular the Americans, as a problem, rhey already enjoy food
and housing privileges equal with those ol‘ Russia’s most privileged
classes; for this they show no gratitude, but demand permissions to
travel and a licence to criticize, undreamed of by the Russian press.

While correspondents may never visit the front, they are occa-
.sionally taken en masse to recently liberated cities or to rear area
military headquarters. On these they are always escorted by an
assistant censor, one of whose duties is to verify everything that
happens. Because if the censor fails to see or hear something on the
trip, the reporters, when they return to Moscow, are not allowed
to report it. It didn’t happen. Even in routine stories from Moscow,
the censors usually blue-pencil anything which has not appeared in
the Russian press, so there is no such thing as a news beat or an
exclusive story. A reporter can work for weeks gathering material
for an article, only to have the whole thing killed because it has
not appeared in Pravda, They view his independent activity as
bordering on espionage.

“What’s a front trip really like?” I asked a group of corre-
spondents.

“Well,” said the oldest, “the first thing is a tour of a liberated
city, where they feed you a lot of food and vodka and show you
a lot of damage — ”

“ — With particular emphasis on the churches destroyed,” said
the second correspondent.

“Next, they take you to see the mayor,” continued the oldest
correspondent. “He’s usually forty-one years old. They tell you
that he’s been a Party member since he was twenty-two and had
lived in this town three years.”

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS I IQ

“And during the invasion he was always transferred to be the
mayor of some Siberian town, and has just come back with the
liberating troops,** said the third correspondent.

“All these Communist mayors look like brisk American city
managers,** said the second.

“Anyway,** continued the oldest, “he always gives you how many
square metres of living space they had before the invasion and
how many they have now.**

“Then they always get out their map, showing how Humpty-
grod will be a bigger and better city after the war, and you look
at that,** said the third.

“And then,** said the second correspondent, “they bring out the
Secretary of the Soviet Atrocities Commission.**

“That guy,’* said the third correspondent, “is one of our oldest
and dearest friends.**

“Now take it easy,*’ interrupted the oldest, “don’t give White
the wrong angle.**

“But in every town the story is more or less the same,” said the
third correspondent.

“Why shouldn’t it be?” said the oldest. “After all, the Germans
didn’t change their methods.”

“I know it,” said the third. “What I object to is that the Soviet
people sometimes stretch the figures. The solid provable truth is
always so shocking that it’s almost incredible. I guess the Soviets
are so shocked themselves that they think the outside world won’t
be as shocked 2is they are unless they stretch it.”

“Sure,” said the second, “like the kid who comes home from
the circus and tells you the elephant was bigger than the tent.”

“Well, to go on,” said the oldest, “he always tells us how many
Jews the Germans killed here — ^say 80,000. We privately estimate
it couldn’t have been less than 40,000. Then he tells us how they
did it.”

“Gave them notice to appear in their best clothes and all their
valuables because they were going to be moved. Then marched
them all out to a ravine and shot them.”

“Always made them undress first,” said the third correspondent.
“Of course, they take us to the ravine.”

“And it’s always full of bodies,” said the second.

“Only in Kiev where the Germans shot 80,000, they dug them
up again just before they left (or rather they made Soviet war
prisoners do it) and burned the bodies so there would be no trace.
Then they shot the Soviet war prisoners.”

“All but three who got away,” said the second correspondent.
“We talked to them.”

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REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

“By the time the Germans left Kiev, they knew they were licked,”
said the oldest.

“And they didn’t want to be criticized,” said the third.

“No,” said the second. “They didn’t want that.”

“And they’re proud that they’re an orderly people,” said the
third.

“Next the Russians take us in cars out to see some German forti-
fications,” said the oldest.

“And after that always the general.”

“What does he tell you?”

“All any general ever can in any army,” said the second. “ Which
is never much.”

“Hell,” said the third, “generals were never there themselves.
All they know is what someone tells them. You can have the
generals. Even these Soviet generals.”

“But don’t forget,” said tlic oldest, “when you get up with the
army, everything gets belter fast. Because they’re smart, and strictly
business, and tiiey do it well.”

“They do it very, very well,” said the third.

“With what they have,” said the second.

“ Which is the best the country has,” said the third.

“What else happens?”

“That’s all,” said the second.

“Except they give you a lot of vodka and pour you back on
the train,” said the oldest.

“And you've had a front trip,” said the third.

EIGHT

I HAVE just been pricing food in the Moscow government-run
stores and in the uncontrolled free public markets and at last I
understand how and what these people cat.

A war-plant worker who eocceeds her quota makes about i,ooo
roubles a month, which at the cheap diplomatic rate of exchange
is S8o and will buy about that much in terms of the state-controlled
prices for rationed goods.

But the quantides which she can buy on the radon arc so meagre
that she can’t spend more than about $6.50 a month for rationed
food.

In America, any worker who lost his food coupons could sdll

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 12 1

live magnificently on unrationed goods. He could fill up on milk,
eggs, fish, poultry, bread, and unlimited amounts of fresh fruit and
vegetables.

In the Soviet Union everything which has any possible food
value is either rigidly rationed or else is unobtainable except at
fantastic prices.

The Soviet food ration, which she must buy at her assigned
grocery store, gives the worker about nine-tenths of what she must
have to keep alive and working. For the other tenth, and for any
food delicacies she wants, she must look elsewhere.

The first place to look is in the free market or Rynok, where
farmers bring produce for sale.

A note here on the farmer. He lives on a collective or state farm,
where he does his share of the common work. When the crop is
sold, certain overhead expenses must be met, just as in capitalist
countries. There are the state taxes, whicli take a substantial share.
His collective probably owes money for farm implements it has
bought from the Machinery Trust, and these instalments must
be paid. The Collective has probably pledged itself to buy a tank
for the Red Army, so taking these items together, nine-tenths of
what it raises must be sold to the State at the low-pegged official
price.

But not all. A small surplus of produce usually remains, and this
is distributed among the farmers, who are free cither to eat it or
bring it to town for sale in the free market, at any price they care
to ask. This is also true of what each farmer raises in the small
kitchen garden tract which is allotted him. It is supposedly only
large enough for his family’s needs, but usually something is left
over.

In America commission men make the rounds of farm houses in
trucks, buying surplus vegetables for resale in town. In the Soviet
Union both the farmer and the commission man would get a five-
year sentence, because that is exploitation. For the commission man
hopes to sell what he buys at a profit, and is thus guilty of exploiting
both farmer and the worker. To avoid this crime, the Soviet
farmer must take time to hitch up and go to market where he sells
personally what he raises, and the hungry .housewife may go by
subway clear across Moscow to find him.

The Moscow Central Rynok is a large, crowded, fairly clean
pavilion, which resembles a farmer’s market in any fair-sized Ameri-
can town. The rouble-per-kilo prices I translate into American
dollars and cents per pound. But remember that on this same basis,
our Russian warworkcr gets a total of $20 a week.

With this, at the Rynok, she may buy all the eggs she wants

122

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

(but with no guarantee of their freshness) at $13.10 a dozen. And
bread, too. She probably can’t afford a whole loaf, but may buy
as big a chunk as she wants at the rate of $5.67 per pound. Here
is some mutton (or perhaps goat) — a bargain at $11.34 pound
— more than half her week’s wages.

Has my lady a sweet tooth ? Well, an old peasant woman is selling
chunks of sugar beet at 80 cents a pound. But if she wants much
of that honey at the next booth, she must save her money for he is
asking $15 a pound. It’s much sweeter than the watery beet.

Then there are assorted items. Across the way an old lady is
selling a calPs head and its four knuckles. She wants $18 for the
collection, with the hair on and glassy eyes open, attracting a few
flics.

Another wrinkled old lady is selling a bunch of peonies. Obvi-
ously, they were planted at the corner of her house, and she is
selling them just before the petals get too limp. But no one is going
to buy the entire bunch since she is asking (and getting) $1.60
per flower.

Across the way a man is selling a crudely made wooden coat-
hanger for which he wants $1.02. It is a fair copy of the kind
which in peacetime an American cleaner sends back with your suit
free. This sale is legal in Russia because the seller whittled it
himself.

Potatoes arc $1.05 cents a pound. No wonder our lady-shopper
has a little garden plot, and tries to raise all she can herself. Here
arc ripe currants in a jelly glass. The man wants a dollar for them,
but, of course, he keeps the glass.

The currants made into jam would be good on cottage cheese —
cheese you can buy here for $6 a pound.

Now for milk. An old lady has a huge pitcher of it and a queue
is waiting to buy. The price is $2.65 a quart. But, of course, you
must bring your own bottle, except that these people can’t afford
more than a glassful. Is it inspected? Who knows? Maybe the old
lady scalded her big pitcher and maybe not. But look closely — the
customers arc inspecting. The old lady pours a few drops into a
customer’s palm. The customer tastes it. Yes, it’s fresh — so she
buys. Most of the people of the milk line are holding freshly scoured
American-made tin cans to carry the milk home in.

In the yard outside arc other things. This girl would like to sell
some stockings — they’re only slightly used and carefully mended.
When she sells them, she will undoubtedly go in and buy some
food with the money. She wants $6.25 for the cotton ones and
$25 for the rayon pair.

Shoes? Yes, you can buy them. A man is selling his extra pair.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 1 23

somewhat worn but they look fairly stout, for i,ooo roubles —
$80 in our money or exactly a month’s salary for our warworkcr.
But if she should want a pair of new evening shoes, she would
have to save for several months, as they would cost her $333.33
per pair.

But here are a couple of big, strapping girls who are obviously
selling something else. They arc all fixed up with lipstick, red shoes,
red pocketbooks, and red ribbons in their hats, their eyelashes
smeared with stove blacking, and they arc giving the farmers the
eye.

Now, of course, prostitution has been abolished in the Soviet
Union; woman’s most precious gift is no longer to be had for
money. But, friend, do you happen to have an extra quart of milk,
a bottle of vodka, a pound of pork, or a pack of cigarettes ?

Here a girl is selling a sweater — probably to buy food, since it is
warm now — and this is a real prize of soft, English camel’s hair or
cashmere. Probably, it originally came from one of the embassies
or maybe a soldier occupying the Baltic States in 1940 brought it
home. And any Russian would call it a bargain at $56. Still, this is
June. She could get much more next October — but she’s hungry
now.

However, remember that these food prices listed above arc
exceptional ; our $80 a month Soviet warworker has already bought
with her ration book at the government-controlled store about nine-
tenths of the food she uses and has paid only $6.50 per month for
it, at low-pegged, state prices.

On the way home from the market we stop at a government-run
commission clothing shop. If you have any old clothes to spare,
they will buy it, sort, wash, mend, and iron it, and put it on sale
here. This specializes in children’s clothing and they ask $i 2.80 for a
five-year-old size white dress with a dab of embroidery. Cheap for
wartime Russia, but you can’t buy many on a salary of $20 a week.

The Soviet government’s problem was basically that of our own :
its people were getting high war wages, but there was nothing to
spend them on. We solved it partly by taxation and partly by selling
our people bonds, so that after the war, when industry was retooled,
they might sell the bonds and buy merchandise at normal prices.

Of course, war bonds are sold in Russia, many of them even
bearing interest. But a large proportion of Soviet war financing
consists of outright gifts solicited from individuals, factories, and
co-operatives, either in cash or in kind. Also, as we shall see, the
government gets money by charging fantastic prices for luxuries in
state-owned stores, thus putting part of the war on a solid pay-as-
you-go basis which would delight a Vermont Republican.

t24 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

But the Russians are sceptical about bonds, because a man who
owns one has purchasing power which the state can’t control. His
whims constitute a danger to the state economy. Maybe he will
take a notion to start buying before the government is ready to
sell. Maybe he will prefer a radio instead of a wooden table, and
create a sudden shortage in radios !

So long as he is dependent on state wages, he is on a hand-to-
mouth basis and his purchasing power can be controlled. He will
get a radio only when they arc ready to make radios, and the first
sets will go to those whom the government thinks most deserve them.

But if he owns a bond, or if he has hoarded his high wartime
wages under the mattress, the whole carefully planned economy is
threatened.

The Soviet government lias met this peril most ingeniously.
In April of 1944, it began re-opening what it called “Commercial
Stores.” In them the government will sell you almost any luxury
item in food or clothing you want, at prices about equal with those
in the free market from which I have just come, and without asking
you fur ration coupons.

In American terms, the Soviet government is running its own
black market as a state enterprise in order to skim from its workers
the bulk of their war wages.

When peace comes, they hope to have most of the wwker’s
savings in the hands of the government (which wall have no obliga-
tion to repay him, as our government must redeem its war bonds)
and he will be back on a hand-to-mouth basis, dependent on his
government-controlled salary.

It is a difllcrcnt system. In America a man who saves money is
regarded as a sound and valuable citizen. In Russia he is viewed
with suspicion as a hoarder, a potential capitalist to be watched for
the criminal tendency of exploiting his fellow’ workers by giving
them jobs.

Now let us step into one of these government-owned “Com-
mercial Stores” and look at the goods and the prices — along with
our $20 a week Soviet warworkcr. She has left her ration book at
home but this black market is perfectly legal — the government makes
the profit — not some racketeer. The government will sell her their
cheapest grade of baloney for $13.20 per pound or boiled ham at
$26.46 per pound or bacon at $24.57 per pound. A dressed chicken
is cheaper — only $13.20 per pound.

Beef— about the grade America uses for soup meat — is $13.62 per
pound, mutton $13.20, and pickled herring dripping firom the barrel
$13.20 per pound.

And not only staples, but luxuries. If she plans to have a few

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 1 25

friends in for a snack, there is sliced, cooked sturgeon at Si 3.20
per pound, black caviar at Si9-73 per pound; almond meats the
same, and also hazel nuts.

She can toss up a little omelette out of these really fresh eggs (you
can never be sure in the free market) for only Si. 25 per egg, and
take home a pint of this nice, fresh, thick cream for S8. Or Swiss
cheese at S20 per pound. All these items are clean, nicely packaged
(at the free market she must bring her own bottles or wrapping
paper) and she can be sure she is not getting short weight. So she
would probably rather go here than to the free market — if she can
spare the time.

For outside this store a long line stretches around the block;
shabby warworkers eager to pay these prices. Inside there is another
long line to the cashier’s desk. It takes the better part of a day to
get in, buy a few items and get out again. For this is one of only
twenty “Commercial Stores” in Moscow.

Their purpose was not only to drain off the warworkcr’s surplus
buying power, but also to keep this surplus out of the hands of the
farmers, where it would be equally menacing to the government’s
postwar plans.

The government, of course, had already tried patriotic appeal;
there are countless drives urging factories and collective farms
to buy tanks and planes for the Red Army, but this was not
enough.

There remains considerable money now in the hands of the
farmers who have been selling food at the fantastic free market
prices for some time. With the money they have been paying fan-
tastic prices for second-hand clothing.

Last summer the government opened a chain of clothing stores
exactly like its commercial food stores, where new, stout, warm
clothes, including many luxury items, are on sale at black market
prices. Thus, it will take from the fkrmcr all he has saved from
selling food in the free market to city workers.

Any foreigner, looking at all this, is amazed that the people do
not protest when the government takes over the functions of the
illegal black market. On the contrary, they seem glad to buy these
things, and count the new shops among the other blessings of this
society.

“This government is afraid of money,” said the American who
was showing me around the market. “Their real rewards aren’t in
terms of roubles. If you belong to a privileged class, they let you
trade at certain luxury stores from which others are barred. Their
rewards are medals and decorations, some of which entitle you to
ride free on the trains, or admit your children to universities without

126

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

tuition. Factories which exceed their production norms are re-
warded with tickets to the opera, or given the privilege of buying
luxury items at a greatly reduced rate.

“ Money is always kept secondary. The authorities arc suspicious
of it. They arc afraid that it will accumulate into great fortunes
which will destroy their system.

‘‘Because of the way they have been educated, they can’t under-
stand our system. If you try to tell them that we control great
fortunes by breaking them up with inheritance taxes, they don’t
believe you. Because such a thing could not happen under capitalism
as they have learned about it in their tcxtbooli.”

As we walked home I was struck again by the drabness of the
stores and apartments.

What is missing is competition. Nobody bothers to put up a
striking store front or a beautifully arranged window display. The
grocery stores are all run by the food trust, the clothing stores by
the textile trust. It is a matter of considerable indifference to the
government even in peacetime whether the public chooses to buy
its socks or sausages at one particular drab government bureau, or
at a similar branch several blocks down the street.

Some effort is made to present the merchandise attractively, just
as our post office would prefer to put out pretty stamps. But it
doesn’t greatly matter, any more than Kansas particularly cares
whether its auto licence tags are prettier or easier to screw on than
those of neighbouring Oklahoma.

The architect who drew the plans for that dreary workers’ apart-
ment had to please, not the people who li\'e in it, nor the promoter-
owners who hoped to keep it rented, but the government officials
who approved his drawings. The tenants live there not because they
like its facade or its plumbing, but because it belongs to the factory
where they work or because they lack the necessary prestige or
political connections to wangle more square metres of living space
in a better one.

This does not mean that either the Russian people or the Soviet
government do not want beauty; there are many sporadic and
bungling efforts in that direction: it means that they have a poor
system for getting it. For competition has gone from Moscow’s
shops and buildings; over eveiy^thing rests the dull, unimaginative
hand of a bureaucracy which, in the absence of competition, pro-
duces only a dreary mediocrity.

The way to understand capitalism is not to memorize the long
words economists use. It is to go some place where they don’t have
any, and see that they do instead.

Under our way of doing things, a man who saves money instead

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 1 27

of spending it to have a good time, performs a useful act. For out
of such savings our factories are built and our farms improved.

These Socialists can argue that when saving and spending are left
up to the individual, they can get out of control and wreck a
nation’s business structure. Panicky saving can stop all business
activity and throw millions out of work. They can argue that
the greatest waste of capitalism is not the money we spend feeding
the unemployed, but the valuable man-hours of work which our
nation loses when these millions are either idle, or when they are
employed by the state in ways which do not compete with private
business, which means that they are producing little of practical
value.

But are capitalist depressions any more wasteful of human energy
than this bureaucratic society with its inefficient method; where
almost every activity is a state monopoly, and where there is no
competition to force inefficient businesses to reform or go broke?
True, these people don’t stand in line at employment agencies.
They work terribly hard and stand in line to pay $1.25 for a really
fresh egg. In peacetime they stood in line for other things. They
work terribly hard but produce so little that the living standard
is less than was that of our jobless on work relief. During our
depression as many as 1 5,000,000 people of our 1 30,000,000 were for
a few years down to this low WPA living standard.

But in the Soviet Union about 180,000,000 people have been on
an even lower living standard for twenty-five years, and only a
few privileged million know anything better. During this quarter-
century the Soviets have controlled one-seventh of the world’s land
surface, rich in natural resources.

They explain this low' living standard by pointing out that the
Russian people lack technical experience and that Russia’s resources
are largely undeveloped. But to correct these things they have had
almost a quarter of a century of peace — which is a long time.

Temporarily, money has little value. Everyone has far more than
he needs to buy his ration limit. The unofficial currency in Russia
is vodka. The average citizen may buy a pint a month for about
but if he does not care to drink, it has a very high trading value.
If he slips a bottle to a shoemaker, he can get his shoes mended.
It will also procure a cheap abortion, although one performed under
fairly sanitary conditions would cost much more.

There arc, in Russia, several categories of rationing corresponding
to different strata of the Soviet caste system. The Red Army, for
instance, is extremely well fed, particularly in the front lines. And
Soviet officers are given a 50 per cent discount when they buy at
the newly opened commercial stores.

128

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

The Kremlin is luxuriously fed through its own commissary.
Whenever one of the foreign embassies is giving a big, formal
dinner, the Kremlin obligingly provides them with delicacies which
otherwbe would be unobtainable in the Soviet Union at any price.

Foreigners are about as well fed as the top Bolsheviks (except,
of course, for the very top, who live in the Kremlin). They get
ample meat and bread rations, may buy four pints of vodka a
month, and so on down the line.

For ordinary Soviet civilians, there is a sliding scale, which may
be pretty well judged by the bread ration. A first-class warworker
gets 600 grammes a day — which is more than a pound. A second-class
worker gets 500, an office employee (not an executive) gets 400
and a dependant (old people, children, cripples) gets 300 grammes.

Writers, actors, singers, musicians, and other artists are in a
special luxury category, not only for food, but for clothing and
living quarters.

But the whole picture was nicely summed up by William Henry
Chamberlin, a veteran Moscow correspondent, who has written
several scholarly books on the Soviet Union. Chamberlin was
caught in Bordeaux the week that France fell, and watched the city
seethe. The streets were thronged with homeless people, they were
sleeping five and six in a room, grocery stores were sold out, there
were long lines waiting to get into restaurants.

Chamberlin surveyed all this and finally in his slow drawl,
remarked to a fellow correspiondent (who quoted it to me in Mos-
cow), “You know, it takes a great upheaval, a catastrophic defeat
in war and a national convulsion to reduce a nation to that state of
affairs which is normal, everyday life in the Soviet Union.”

“To-day,” says Kirilov, “we visit vegetable factory.” This, it
develops, is an enormous state-run greenhouse a few kilometres
beyond Moscow, which was started a number of years ago by our
host. Commissar Mikoyan, when he was head of the Commissariat
of Supply. Its purpose was to provide Moscow with a year-round
supply of fresh vegetables.

In an open air garden, fresh cucumbers are not ready to pick
until the middle of July. This hothouse begins to deliver them in
late February.

First, the director. He is small, wiry, and sunburned, a farmer
type in any country. Eric starts in with some questions about
financing.

Last year they produced 10,000,000 roubles* worth of vegetables,
the director tells us, on which they made a profit of 3,000,000, and
this was used to enlarge the farm.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 120

These figures are based on the low fixed price at which this
farm must sell its vegetables to the state grocery stores. If they
were sold in the free market, the profit would be in terms of billions.

The farm, they tell us, has a production norm, and its workers
get a third of everything produced in excess of this, given to them
in a vegetable dividend towards the end of the year. This they may
either eat or sell in the open market, and is, of course, in addition
to their wages of 500 roubles a month for which they work ten
hours a day, six days a week. These wages are low by war-plant
standards, but remember they may cat or sell vegetables at free
market prices — or trade them for clothing. Money is always second-
ary in the Soviet Union.

Now we begin the tour. First a huge hothouse for tomatoes,
where the workers (90 per cent arc girls) pick them green at an
even size to ripen on frames.

The size of the place is staggering. They tell us there are more
than 30,000 square yards under glass. In addition they have 22,000
cold frames, each more than a yard and a half square. We see long
vistas of tomato plants. Peak production here is 100,000 pounds of
tomatoes a month.

In the next building are long alleys of pumpkins. This I can
hardly believe. For with us pumpkins are so cheap that no one
would dream of raising them under glass.

This plant is the largest of several other vegetable factories which
supply Moscow, they explain, but its production equals that of the
others combined. That would allow one pound of tomatoes a month
in winter for about 200,000 privileged people out of Moscow’s
millions.

And the price? The director tells us they get in winter ten times
the price of tomatoes raised in summer in the open air. No wonder
30 cents of every dollar is profit, in spite of the fact that they must
heat the greenhouses from September to May in this sub-arctic
climate.

In America such a spread would bring quick competition ; some-
body would invest money in railroad cars to bring them up from
the south in winter. Certainly in America no one could afford to
produce hothouse pumpkins, since they are cheap to raise, keep so
well, and are so easy to ship.

But here a state monop)oly has no competition to uncover its
mistakes; instead they can point with pride to their 30 per cent
profit.

The plant is clean and seems efficiently run, following the most
modem methods. They also show us their live stock which they
explain is not for sale, but for the use of members of this co-operative.

130 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

They have flocks of fine-looking chickens, geese, turkeys, and
ducks, all of carefully selected bre^s; the pens are immaculate.

No dinner in Russia was better than the honest meal we sat down
to in the big dining room. True, the Intourist steward hovered
around, uncorking champagne and spooning out caviar. But we
could ignore him, for they had good, simple dishes cooked on the
farm — cabbage soup, roast pork, roast duck, and homemade
dumplings.

These Russians are fine farmers. It is the fault of the system if
what they are doing may in part be silly. They are doing it
efficiently and well.

On the way back to Moscow we turn into the driveway of what
was the estate of a czarist nobleman, and is now a museum. When
Peter the Great was forcing Russia to turn toward Europe, this
nobleman sent several hundred of his young serfs to Italy to learn
the arts. When they relumed they were architects, portrait and
landscape painters, sculptors, opera singers, and actors.

He put them to work renovating his palace in the Italian style.
It became a forest of slave-produced statuary and paintings and
included a theatre for the ballet.

The slaves had learned a smooth technique and certainly no one
could criticize their volume. We pass down lanes of Venuses,
Neptuncs and swans tampering with the honour of Ledas. But as art
it is as dead as the autocracy which inspired it.

A group of clean, bright-eyed Soviet school children arc being
taken through by their teacher.

The old, courtly caretaker and his wife bow us out after we have
signed the guest book. Jennie whispers, “They arc of the old regime,
those two.”

“You have seen them before?”

“Never. But I know by the way they speak Russian, and their
manners. One can always tell the former people. They are of the
old times.”

Probably an old lawyer, or an old teacher and his wife, who
found for themselves this little haven against the social storm which
destroyed their class. To find such a haven was not easy, for an
estimated 20,000,000 people died during the civil wars — most often
from starv'ation. And of these, few were rich aristocrats, for before
the first world war only 30,000 people had taxable incomes of more
than $5,000.

There is in Moscow a society called Voks, organized by the
government to maintain cultural relations with the outside world.
And this afternoon Voks honours American business, which means

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

I3I

Eric, accompanied by Joyce and me, with a party at the com-
paratively modest mansion which is their headquarters. Not more
than twenty-five Russians are there, but the list includes every well-
known Russian name in the arts. There is, of course, the composer
Shostakovitch, the sculptress who did the gigantic statuary group
for the Paris exposition of 1937, and the immensely popular writer
Ilya Ehrenburg, of whom I have also heard much from the
correspondents.

For many years he served as Tass correspondent in Paris, which
is the only Western country he knows well, and is at ease in the
French language.

He is a short, stocky little man who in Moscow dresses in the
kind of unmatched English tweeds affected by French intellectuals.
His political line in relation to the Germans is indistinguishable
from that of the late Georges Clemenceau. This has not always been
the line of his government. Until the Teheran conference, where it
became clear that the Anglo-American powers would raise no
serious obstacle to their annexation of the Baltic States, the Soviets
maintained, in Moscow, a Free German Committee of captured
generals. Stalin had emphatically said that the war was not against
the German people but only against Hitler^s clique. A separate
Soviet peace, signed with any German faction other than Hitler’s,
keeping intact the German army, was possible.

Since Teheran, however, when Stalin, in exchange for various
assurances, accepted the Anglo-American “unconditional surrender”
formula, the Free German Committee has been soft pedalled, and
Ehrenburg has been given a free rein. His articles calling for venge-
ance on all Germans are prominent, not only in Red Star but in
all the other important Soviet journals, and the government allots
paper for printing hundreds of thousands of copies of his books.

His passionate admiration for France contributes to the poor view
he takes of Anglo-Saxons, and in particular of the Anglo-American
war effort of which, like most Russians, he has seen nothing. His
articles led the Soviet journalistic clamour for a premature second
front. When the Anglo-Americans finally opened their Normandy
offensive, he explained the rapidity of their advance from the
Normandy beachhead as being largely due to the effectiveness of
the French Maquis.

A large English language publication recently cabled its Moscow
agent offering Ehrenburg a fat sum to do an analytical article on
Stalin, which would humanize the Marshal to the outside world.
To anyone who knows Russia, this request was naive in the extreme.
I happen to believe that Stalin is a great man, who has guided Russia
with an instinctive wisdom. But any Russian within reach of the

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

132

NKVD who attempted in print to analyze the Marshal’s motives
or examine his character would be putting himself in real peril.
Only abject oriental flattery is permitted, by comparison with
which Carl Sandburg’s admiring examination of Abraham Lincoln
would look like an attempt at character-assassination.

Ehrenburg slid off this hot seat, at the same time salvaging con-
siderable self-respect, by explaining loftily to the publication’s
Moscow representatives that he didn’t care to do such an article
because he hadn’t always seen eye to eye with Stalin’s political line.

Among these Soviet intellectuals were a number who have the
privilege of deciding what English and American books arc politically
fit to be published in the Soviet Union. An attractive girl began
to question me about Saroyan.

“How is he regarded in America?”

“Very highly. He is one of our important younger writers.”

“But in the matter of his political line, what is thought of him?”

“I don’t think he has any political line.”

“But would not you say that it differs from the line of Steinbeck ? ”

I remembered an act of one of Saroyan’s plays in which he
satirizes Steinbeck’s “Oakies.” But I only said, “We consider
Saroyan an important artist.”

“Still there is a difference,” she insisted firmly. So I would guess
that while Saroyan may be enjoyed by a few Soviet intellectuals,
he will not be translated in toto.

As they talked we learned that Walt Disney is more often than
not in the Soviets’ dog house, since Mickey Mouse frequently
deviates from the party line, wliile Charlie Chaplin never does.

Just as we sat down to the usual banquet, I was told that I would
be called on for a toast, so as I ate and chatted with my dinner
partner — the monumental mason who had done the statuary group
at the Paris exposition — I began to formulate what I would say.

Ehrenburg was sitting just opposite me and I made some friendly
remark to the effect that he was known in America as Russia’s
most popular writer. He nodded gravely. Then I asked him how
many copies of his last book had been sold in Russia.

“Eight hundred thousand,” he said. “But, of course, in Russia
we have a paper shortage.”

My brief toast was by now firmly in mind. It was to be a few
sentences devoted to Ehrenburg. Now that I had formulated them
I could forget them and discuss sculpture with my dinner partner.
Eric spoke and then Avcrell Harriman arose. His toast was graceful.
It was also brief. And to my horror it was devoted entirely to
Ehrenburg. I would have to formulate a new toast. But why was
everyone looking at me? Even the toastmaster.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

133

“Mr. White,” he said, “it is now your turn.”

I got up, groping for a few polite sentences. It took me about
ten seconds to think of the first. Then maybe others would come.

“ I am here,” I said, “ not as a representative of American business”
— I paused and the interpreter, a plump, raven-eyed German
Jewess of about twenty-five, translated this into Russian “ — but
rather as an American writer” — again I paused and she repeated it
in Russian — I was an Americanski something or other — “and
representing her free press.”

I paused. She didn*t say anything. I looked at her.

“Go on,” she said, sharply.

“But translate.”

“Go on, go on.”

“But translate what I just said.”

“Go on, go on ! I will translate.”

But I couldn’t go on. That second sentence hadn’t yet come. In
my head was only fury at the interpreter. What was the use of
talking if no one understood? Well, just say anything and quickly
sit down.

So I said, “I am most happy to be here to meet the writers,
.sculptors, and musicians of the Soviet Union,” and sat down. I
suppose it was abrupt. Averell Harriman helpfully leaned forward
and said, in an extremely loud whisper:

“The toast — say something so they can drink.”

Oh, yes, the damned toast. I struggled to my feet.

“It is a most happy occasion that wc can meet with the creative
people of this country,” I said. And the interpreter translated.

“Say that in the future you look forward to closer bonds between
Soviet cultural leaders and those of America,” said Harriman.

“In the future I look forward to closer bonds between Soviet
cultural leaders and those of America,” I said. The interpreter then
translated.

Then Eric leaned forward: “Say that cultural relations will
cement the bonds of future business relationships,” he said.

“Cultural relations will cement the bonds of future business
relationships,” I said. The plump interpreter translated.

Then, not to be outdone, Averell Harriman leaned forward
again.

“Say that cultural bonds and business bonds are reflected by
close diplomatic bonds of friendship.”

So I started to say it, but as the alert interpreter already had
begun translating, I didn’t finish.

“And say that to a continuance of these three, and the per-
petuation of cultural, conunercial, and diplomatic relations between

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

134

the Soviet Union and the United States of America, you raise your
glass,” said Avercll, this time looking not at me but at the intcr-

E reter, who immediately began to translate. So I thought it would
c a good idea just to raise my glass. It was, for everyb^y immedi-
ately raised theirs. Then I sat down, but I doubt that anyone
noticed it.

I think there were a number of other toasts. As we were leaving
the table, I almost bumped into the plump interpreter.

” Why wouldn’t you translate what I said about the free Ameri-
can press?” I asked sharply.

She frowned. “You should know such a thing is verboten in the
Soviet Union,” she snapped. Then she went on ahead of me.

What might be called the American fifth column has never
bothered to go underground, even during the war. Large sections
of our people openly favoured the axis before it began, and since
we got in, powerful newspapers have continued caustic criticism
of our British and Russian allies. By contrast with this, Russia seems
a miracle of national unity, with not a dissenting voice.

But if Russians are contemptuous of us because all of our news-
papers do not support Roosevelt with that degree of doglike devotion
with which Russian newspapers support Stalin, we can retort that,
so far, none of our generals has deserted to join either the Germans
or the Japanese.

Moscow has not widely publicized the fact that General Vlassov,
charged in the early days of the war with the defence of the Staraya
Russa sector, went over to the enemy with his entire army corps,
who were mostly Ukrainians. However, the Germans soon dis-
covered that it was not safe to arm these men for combat on the
Eastern front — for many of them would desert again to join the
partisans.

We generously praise the high morale of the Red Army and
sometimes complain that our boys do not seem to know what they
are fighting for. But, for the record, we should remember that
out of the many Anglo-American prisoners the Germans hold, they
have failed to organize a single battalion willing to fight in Nazi
uniform.

And if our people are sometimes influenced by enemy radio
broadcasts, the fact that they are allowed to listen in itself reflects
a healthy state of mind not to be found in Russia, where the govern-
ment saw fit to confiscate all radios in the hands of private citizens
during the first week of the war.

I don’t say that American morale is higher than Russian. I only
point out that we can hold up our heads in decent self-respect.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

135

Wc have read many stories of the heroism of Moscow when the
enemy was at its gates. Thousands of women left their homes to dig
fortifications in the suburbs, saving the city to the embarrassment
of our American experts who had predicted that it would fall. Such
stories arc true, and are typical of the great majority. But since they
are the only ones we have heard 1 should like to giv^ a few other
stories which, although typical only of a minority, are equally well
authenticated.

They were told me by a correspondent who had the ill fortune
to be left behind in Moscow when other correspondents went to
Kuibyshev. He is a very intelligent young man of twenty-eight,
with one brown eye and one blue, and six fingers on his right hand.
Since he is now living in the Hotel Metropole, I hesitate to disclose
his name or nationality for fear what he told me might be embarras-
ing professionally.

So, however this may be, and whether tliis young man is one
of many, the Moscow panic which he described for me began
October, 1941, as the Germans approached the town. The foreigners
had gone, the government had gone, and it looked as though the
Germans might come any day. Long lines of Red Army troops
were still marching through the city, the noise of their feet muffled
in the snow, on their way to the front. As the fighting got closer
rumours arose.

People began destroying all evidence which would prove they
were ever sympathetic with the Party. My friend with one brown
eye and one blue, says it isn’t quite that you could walk down
the street and see the Order of Lenin lying in the gutter where
someone had hastily torn it off. But they did burn up those pictures
of Stalin, Lenin, and Molotov which arc in many Russian homes,
and they burned their Communist books — doing such a thorough
job that it is still difficult to buy this type of literature in the book
stores, since because of the paper shortage the government has not
got around to replacing it.

The Germans were dropping leaflets — not only reprints of Winston
Churchill’s early speeches attacking the Bolsheviks — but also attacks
on Jews. But German propaganda was not solely responsible for
the rising anti-Semitism in Moscow; Russian propaganda also
contributed.

For in an effort to arouse patriotism in the Russian people, the
Bolsheviks had been turning to history, repopularizing the discarded
heroes of czarist times, generals and czars who in the past had
heaved out invaders in the name of Holy Mother Russia.

“We know,” reasoned a prominent Bolshevik, “that the people
arc not fighting for Communism; they arc fighting for Russia.” It

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

136

was true, and the Bolsheviks capitalized on it. But pride of race cuts
both ways: if you convince a people that an unusual amount of
heroism goes along with their possession of Slavic blood, they take
the further logical step of concluding that something is wrong with
anyone not similarly blessed. This popularization of the old medieval
Slavic skull-busters resulted naturally in a rising contempt for Jews.

Perhaps the Kremlin miscalculated, or perhaps it estimated that
the immediate gain in fighting spirit was worth its temporary cost.
In any event, the anti-Semitism did not directly embarrass the
Kremlin for, since the purges of 1937, very few Jews remain in high
government positions. In any event, they have recently taken steps
to correct the trend by soft-pedalling publicity about the Slavic
skull-busters of antiquity. The czars often, for their own purposes,
encouraged anti-Semitism, and one of the admirable things about
the Soviet regime is its uncompromising attitude toward any form
of race prejudice, which it holds down with a firm hand; no small
task in dealing with the Russian people, in whom anti-Semitism has
been a tradition for centuries, and in whom a taste for pogroms
seemed as deeply ingrained as their liking for cucumbers.

But the government has done a good job in keeping it down,
with the result that anti-Semitism is no stronger than it is in America,
although conditions in this respect arc not yet so good as in England,
where the people have always preserved a high standard of race
tolerance.

The people at the time of the Moscow panic were also sore at
the army. For twenty-five years they had been sacrificing to main-
tain the biggest one in Europe, and they had been told it was the
best equipped. But ever since June it had been kicked out of one
defence line after another, and now had been beaten back to the
outskirts of the capital.

The whole thing seemed hopeless to many, and since they were
also frightened by the continual bombing, they felt the sooner it
was over the better. My friend with one blue eye and one brown,
had the habit of wearing in his button-hole a small replica of the
well-known flag of his country in red, white, and blue enamel. It
also happened that his country was then being highly praised in the
Moscow press for the aid which it promised to Russia, and the
people were being assured that much more would soon arrive.

But my friend had to take off his little enamel flag because it got
him into too many arguments.

Strangers would come up to him on the street or on the subway
and say, “Why are you silly people sending help to the regime?
Don’t you know you’re only prolonging the war? If you’d mind
your own business, it would be over sooner.”

. REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 137

And if anyone started making a patriotic speech, someone might
remark sourly, “What's the matter with you, anyway? Are you a
Jew?"

The people who lacked sufficient political importance or influence
to be evacuated from Moscow, were understandably resentful of
those who left. And what with the German leaflets, resentment
crystallized around the evacuation of the Theatrical Commissariat
which in Russia as in most countries contains somewhat more than
the average proportion of Jews. Various groundless rumours cir-
culated to the effect that they had evacuated both in haste and in
considerable luxury, and the people argued that they should not
have been evacuated at all, since they were hardly indispensable
to the war effort and would have been of more use keeping up
morale in Moscow. The Commissariat was, of course, acting strictly
under orders, with the exception of the manager of the circus, who
evacuated precipitously but with enough forethought to take along
the week's gate receipts, for which offence he was later reported
to have been shot.

However, about half the cast of the Bolshoi Theatre was ordered
to stay, and the ballet presently reopened. Other stages in Moscow
were filled with ancient vaudeville turns of decaying actors who
were delighted to come out of retirement.

In general, the evacuees were not popular. Rumours circulated as
to the enormous prices they were paying for automobiles to make
their getaway, and other rumours to the effect that peasants were
stopping them on the highways to relieve them of hoarded valuables.
In some apartment houses the inmates forcibly prevented them
from loading their cars with food. “You’re lucky enough to be
going; at least leave those who must stay something to eat,” was
the argument.

As the Germans advanced, some, muttering against the regime,
openly rejoiced. “Now the Bolsheviks arc going to catch it !” But
most, even among those who wanted the Germans to come so the
bombs would stop, disliked them more than they hated the regime.

The great majority would be typified by the girl who had been
exiled for two years for knowing a foreigner too well. At the height
of the panic she showed up at the Metropole asking for my six-
fingered friend. He assumed she wanted help in getting out of
Moscow, but no: she was wondering if he could help her get a
rifle, if any might be left in the empty embassies. With it she could
go out to the near-by front and help kill the invaders.

The situation got worse. One morning my six-fingered friend
noticed the militiaman on the corner had disappeared. Also those
who guarded the vacant embassies against looting. It turned out

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

136

was true, and the Bolsheviks capitalized on it. But pride of race cuts
both ways: if you convince a people that an unusual amount of
heroism goes along with their possession of Slavic blood, they take
the further logical step of concluding that something is wrong with
anyone not similarly blessed. This popularization of the old m^icval
Slavic skull-busters resulted naturally in a rising contempt for Jews.

Perhaps the Kremlin miscalculated, or perhaps it estimated that
the immediate gain in fighting spirit was worth its temporary cost.
In any event, the anti-Semitism did not directly embarrass the
Kremlin for, since the purges of 1937, ver>' few Jews remain in high
government positions. In any event, they have recently taken steps
to correct the trend by soft-pedalling publicity about the Slavic
skull-busters of antiquity. The czars often, for their own purposes,
encouraged anti-Semitism, and one of the admirable things about
the Soviet r< 5 gime is its uncompromising attitude toward any form
of race prejudice, which it holds down with a firm hand; no small
task in dealing with the Russian people, in whom anti-Semitism has
been a tradition for centuries, and in whom a taste for pogroms
seemed as deeply ingrained as their liking for cucumbers.

But the government has done a good job in keeping it down,
with the result that anti-Semitism is no stronger than it is in America,
although c onditions in this respect arc not yet so good as in England,
where the people have always preserved a high standard of race
tolerance.

The whole thing seemed hopeless to many, and since they were
also frightened by the continual bombing, they felt the sooner it
was over the better. My friend with one blue eye and one brown,
had the habit of wearing in his button-hole a small replica of the
well-known flag of his country in red, white, and blue enamel. It
abo happened that his country was then being highly praised in the
Moscow press for the aid which it promise to Russia, and the
people were being assured that much more would soon arrive.

But my friend had to take off his little enamel flag because it got
him into too many argfuments.

, REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 137

And if anyone staned making a patriotic speech, someone might
remark sourly, “What’s the matter with you, anyway? Arc you a
Jew?”

The people who lacked sufficient political importance or influence
to be evacuated from Moscow, were understandably resentful of
those who left. And what with the German leaflets, resentment
crystallized around the evacuation of the Theatrical Commissariat
which in Russia as in most countries contains somewhat more than
the average proportion of Jews. Various groundless rumours cir-
culated to the effect that they had evacuated both in haste and in
considerable luxury, and the people argued that they should not
have been evacuated at all, since they were hardly indispensable
to the war effort and would have been of more use keeping up
morale in Moscow. The Commissariat was, of course, acting strictly
under orders, with the exception of the manager of the circus, who
evacuated precipitously but with enough forethought to take along
the week’s gate receipts, for which offence he was later reported
to have been shot.

As the Germans advanced, some, muttering against the regime,
openly rejoiced. “Now the Bolsheviks are going to catch it !” But
most, even among those who wanted the Germans to come so the
bombs would stop, disliked them more than they hated the regime.

The situation got worse. One morning my six-fingered friend
noticed the militiaman on the corner had disappeared. Also those
who guarded the vacant embassies against looting. It turned out

138 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

that the previous day the levies of green troops hastily raised to
defend the capital, had broken at Mojhaisk and run away. The
militia had been thrown in to fill the gap.

Immediately there were near-riots at the food stores. Russians
are not by nature an orderly people and as soon as they discovered
the militia was gone, the slow-moving food queues became pushing
crowds. There were many rumours that Jews were being beaten in
the subways.

Three things stopped the Moscow panic. First, the government,
on October 17, ordered all stored food dumped on the market,
giving people permission to buy in unlimited quantities. If the
Germans were to take Moscow, it was better to have it in the cup-
boards of the people than in warehouses for the Germans. The
people were so busy scrambling for this food that they had no time
for rumours.

Second, on October 20, the government declared martial law
in the city, which sobered everybody. But the thing which did
most to bring back morale in Moscow was the fact that, when
the government went to Kuibyshev, Stalin remained in the Kremlin.
The head of their nation was not running out on them, but staying
to defend their city and share its dangers.

Moscow’s panic was never publicized and was soon forgotten
except for arguments between its citizens. Those who stayed
accused: “You’re yellow' or you would never have left.” But the
others had a quick answer. “You’re pro-German,” they said, “or
you wouldn’t have stayed.” Certainly, the disorder and dissension
was no worse than would have been the case in either New York
or London if the Germans had got within seventeen miles of the
city. But the NKVD still has a watchful eye on those suspected
of talking too freely during the Moscow panic.

NINE

There is a whisper in Moscow that another party of correspondents
may be allowed to go down to visit the newly-established American
air bases in the Ukraine. When we arrived, one party was down
there covering the landing of the Fifteenth Air Force on the first
leg of its shuttle mission, when it pasted Rumanian oil fields.

Incidentally, the boys tell me the Red Air Force, which almost
never tackles cither long-range bombing or high altitude work, was

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

139

deeply impressed. Russian officers studied the photographs of the
targets, which showed the accuracy of the bombs, and nodded with
grave approval, handing them back.

Then they asked from what altitude. When told what that
altitude was. they asked for another look at the pictures.

In the original agreement for American air bases in Russia, the
Soviets laid dowm certain restrictions. The fields remained Russian
fields, wdth a Russian commanding officer co-operating with the
American commander, the Russians having entire charge of their
defence. Under the agreement the number of Americans was
limited to a few hundred which allowed only for administrative
personnel, an American hospital unit, and provided about half the
number of mechanics necessary to service the planes. The rest of
these (as well as all the field guards, anti-aircraft gunners, and
defences) were provided by the Russians, and the boys say the Red
Air Force combed its own personnel to send us their best.

Another part of the agreement provided that all American maga-
zines and newspapers received by the troops should be carefully
collected once a week and burned, which the reporters accept as
routine in Russia. Although these American soldiers on Russian
soil may read what they like, the Soviets don^t want hundreds of
American magazines being passed around the Ukraine.

The reporters point out that the Soviets have from their stand-
point made a great concession by allowing even a limited number
of foreign soldiers into the interior, where they must inevitably
mix with the people, and where the American standard in uniforms
and food must certainly arouse comment.

They say, however, that the American boys arc getting along
beautifully both with the Red Air Force and with the people of
the Ukraine, and that this in itself is a great story.

I want to go because I am curious about the Ukraine. The Soviet
Union west of the Urals alone is almost as big as the rest of Europe
with nearly as many races. In the north live the Russians, and they
are relatively tall and blond, in colouring like the north Germans
and Scandinavians.

In the south the largest minority are the almost 40,000,000 Ukrain-
ians. Their language differs from Russian about as much as Spanish
differs from Italian (they can understand each other if they talk
slowly). Like the Latins they are generally short and dark.

Russians generally build houses of wood — either log cabins or
gloomy high-gabled ones like those of Prussia or Sweden. But in
the south the houses resemble those of Italy and Spain — white-
washed stucco with tile roofs. The boys tell me of a town in Siberia
settled ten years ago half by Russians and half by Ukrainians. In

140 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

one end are the gay houses of the Ukrainians, with white fences,
flowers, and shrubs. In the other are the gloomy, unpainted wooden
houses of the Russians, with only potatoes growing in the yards.

There always has been an independence movement in the Ukraine,
although the two races are now closer than they ever have been.

The Germans invaded the Ukraine in the first world war, and
after the 1917 Revolution organized an independent state of
Ukrainia which got considerable support from the people. For
Bolshevism was not strong in the Ukraine, which tried to break away
from Moscow and furnished many recruits to the White armies
fighting the Bolsheviks. The Ukrainians were subdued only after
several years of bitter fighting. They also resisted the collectivization
of the land, and hundreds of thousands were arrested as kulaks
and deported.

When* the Germans came back again in 1941 they not only
brought in priests, but many other tame Ukrainians, and again set
up a separatist movement, recruiting a Ukrainian militia for which
they found a fairly ample supply of anti-Russian or anti-Soviet
Quislings.

They started breaking up the collective farms and re-established
private business. The Germans made every effort at first to treat the
Ukrainians well and compared to other occupied parts of the Soviet
Union, they were pampered. Now and then the iron fist came
through the velvet glove.

The Germans came to every village with recruiting appeals for
their labour service in the Reich. It was supposed not to be com-
pulsory, but if enough likely candidates did not volunteer, the
Quisling Cossacks would then come around and see that they did.

Toward the end of the occupation, the people came to dislike
the Quisling Cossacks more than they did the Germans. Then the
Quislings presently fell out with the Germans, with the result that
in some areas the Quislings were fighting both the Wehrmacht and
the Red Army.

But out of all tliis confusion emerges the fact that a majority
were loyal to the Soviet Union throughout — how large a majority
is anyone’s guess. The Red Army, when it re-entered, took a liberal
attitude toward Ukrainians who had had to have dealings with
Germans under the occupation. Many churches established under
German occupation were allowed to remain, and even private stores
survived for some months, probably until the Soviets got their own
system of distribution under way.

However, many Ukrainians who had dealt with the Germans
were given the third degree, with the result that many Quislings
were shot and countless others given ten-year sentences without

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS I4I

right of correspondence. For during the last stages of the mop-up,
the Russians had captured entire regiments of Ukrainians in German
uniform.

Furthermore, the attitude of the Red Army toward any of its
soldiers who surrender is not unlike that of the Japanese, and when
any are recaptured, nobody pelts them with roses or lavishes
sympathy on them.

During their visit to the Ukraine, the reporters found a number
of Red Army soldiers begging from door to door for food. When
tliey questioned them, the men explained that they had been
captured by the Germans and later released by the Russians, but
their cases had not yet been decided.

There is no doubt, however, that most Ukrainians hated the
Germans. During their Ukrainian trip the reporters visited a village
near Uman, wliich had been liberated so recently that two burned
German trucks were still smouldering in a ditch, and the Foreign
Office had had no time to organize propaganda, even if it were
disposed to.

There they talked to two girls who said the Germans had mobilized
them for “voluntary” labour service. They were loaded onto trains
and spent weeks being shunted around, until they arrived in a
big labour dispersal camp. In adjoining pens the Germans kept
British and Russian prisoners of war. The girls said if it hadn’t
been for the bits of chocolate and biscuit from Red Cross parcels
which the British and French threw over the fence to them, the
Russian civilians would have starved. Finally, the British war
prisoners started so strong an agitation that the Germans relented
and provided the Russians with food up to the British standard.
The two girls had gotten away ingeniously. One of them stuck her
hand in a loom, and the other poisoned herself with nicotine tea
from cigarette butts. So the Germans, declaring them unfit to work,
had sent them home.

In the same Ukrainian village the girls led them to a house where
a woman and her three children lay dead on the floor, their blood
not yet dry^^rom the bayonets of the departing Germans.

There is, however, no doubt that the Russians (as distinguished
from other peoples in the Soviet Union) have borne the brunt of
the war. In their territory the Germans behaved with much more
brutality. Also the enthusiasm of the Russians for the war was
greater than that of other Soviet peoples.

There are in the Soviet Union (as in the Czarist Empire) many
nationalities and hundreds of languages, counting sub-dialects. But
the Russian race is clearly the spark-plug of the whole. They are,
to start with, dominant in numbers, and are the most enthusiastic

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

142

Communists. As they fought hardest in war, so they work hardest
in peace.

Tliese little peoples resented Russian rule under the czars; the
Bolshevik Russians are careful of their local prides. Newspaper
are published in their own languages, which are also taught in their
schools, and used in their theatres. Promising local boys are
admitted to the Communist Party or given imposing titles in the
local government.

Yet simultaneously Russian is spreading throughout the Soviet
Union just as the French and English spread their languages through
their empires and for the same reason; it is the speech of the ruling
class, so the minority groups are eager to learn.

At about six o’clock at night the Foreign Office phoned the
Metropole. Bombers from the Eighth Air Force on the first shuttle
raid across Germany would arrive in Russia the next afternoon.

Tomorrow morning we could go by plane to greet them. Most
of the correspondents had already covered the story when the
Fifteenth bombed Rumania and did not care to go again. So I had
no trouble in getting a place on the plane.

However, the Soviet Press, which had dismissed the first shuttle
raid with a few paragraphs, had for some reason decided to make
a field day of this one, for when we got down to the airport for
the early five o’clock departure (the sun had been up for three
hours) we found reporters from Izvestia, Red Siar^ and Pravda as
well as the Soviet newsreels and photographers also waiting.

Then we found, having gotten up about four to dress and shave,
that departure had been changed to nine.

Why hadn’t they notified us the night before, so we could have
had a normal night’s sleep? Well, had they again telephoned the
Metropole, some of us might have failed to get the message. The
Russian correspondents accept this as cither routine or reasonable.
Without even a shoulder shrug, they settle on the benches for a
long wait.

Half an hour before departure our conducting officer arrives —
resplendent in a brand-new Foreign Office uniform. His name is
Okhov and the American reporters say he works in the censorship
bureau. He is surprisingly young and seems a little shy. He has a
pink and white complexion, is tall, and his slinmess is accentuated
by the tubular blue-gray overcoat of his uniform, which falls fi*om
his shoulders to his calves without a curve or wrinkle. Visiting
the American Air Force, we will be in his charge.

We pile into a Russian-built Douglas, and what the country is
like between Moscow and the Ukraine, I do not know, for I was

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 1 43

asleep by the time the wheek cleared the groimd, and did not wake
until they bom|>ed down again on the American air base in the
Central Ukraine, a field on a fiat plane of black dirt like Iowa or
eastern Kansas. We step out into America. Here arc our familiar
steel matting runways, and at the edge of the field a square of khaki
tents which might be any American air station in Wyoming or
Guadalcanal, Scotland or Iceland.

Near it is a So\ict Pullman car, standing alone on a siding. I have
attached myself to Eddy Gilmore, who ^ows his way around this
base, and he says we are scheduled to spend the night in this, but
if I will bring my duffel bag we’ll sneak off from the others and go
to the hospital area and he’ll hit a medical major he knows for a
couple of beds. More fun talking to the American boys there. And
anyway, the damn sleeping car has bedbugs.

The medical major says it will be a cold night in hell when he
can’t find a cot for Eddy and maybe one fHend — unless, of course,
the planes bring in too many kids with fiak in them. But we’ll
know about that soon; in fact we’d better get over to the control
tower now; they’re due in half an hour.

There we find a mixed crowd of high officers : General Walsh
heading the Americans, and Lieutenant General Perminov, the field
commander. Perminov is wiry, tall for a Russian, about fifty, with
slightly graying hair and a most efficient-looking officer. His staff
also looli able — stocky, grave men, their uniforms a little shabbier.
By contrast the American colonels and majors look less impressive
(it is summer and they are not wearing coats) and much neater.
The reporters mingle with this small crowd; the Soviet movie and
sound truck is near by.

An American gasoline re-fuelling truck lumbers past, as the
Russians stare at its bulk, its thick steel construction, its fat, new
rubber tyres. I am standing between a Russian colonel who speaks a
little English, and an American colonel with the Eighth Air Force
insignia sewn on his sleeve shoulder.

"‘There they come!” Very low they seem — tiny dots on the
horizon. “Let’s count them,” says a reporter, “ One-two-threc-
four” — they might be a string of geese flying south in the fall. But
now more appear; a swarm of bees flying formation — “twenty-
three, twenty-four, twenty-five — ”

Now we can see that they have great altitude. Still another line
appears behind over the horizon.

“ — Thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine — ”

The ambulance has rolled out on the field and two nurses stand
beside it American girls with real stockings and clean dresses. And
not top-heavy with bulging Soviet bosoms. The first formation is

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

*44

now approaching the field and we can see their four moton. It
seems to spread out for miles, but on the far horizon other galaxies
of tiny dots appear.

“ — Fifty-two, fifty-three, fifty-four, fifty-five — ”

The first formation is now over the field, with a deep organ roar
of motors. The Red Air Force colonels and majors stand frozen,
staring up at this blue sky, which thunders with twinkling propellers.
The one next me turns, cupping his hand toward my car.

“Even if they do not drop bombs now,” he says, “it is still fear-
some.”

“ — Sixty-seven, sixty-eight, sixty-nine — ”

The caboose of the great sky train is now in sight, but the V
of the lead formation having crossed the field, it swings wide in
a huge turn. Now they are making their landings.

“Look at ’em !” says the Eighth Air Force colonel, “three on the
runway at once ! Boy, that’s my old outfit !” Even at this rate, it
will take almost an hour to bring them in. They taxi toward us —
and the crews begin to climb out and stride over the field — husky
boys with lean, Anglo-Saxon faces, pink-checked and limber —
stuffed with vitamins — fresh milk, orange juice, and thick steaks. It
shows.

And their uniforms — real, unscuffed, polished leather, real wool,
and real rubber where these things should be. Lieutenant General
Perminov is shaking hands with the first pilot and then a dark-
eyed Russian girl in Red Army uniform hands him a bouquet of
flowers, while the Soviet news cameras grind. The pilot takes it, and
thanks her with an embarrassed grin.

It is a sad little bouquet, the flowers arc scrawny and bedraggled.
But then I remember that the town’s greenhouse, if it ever had one,
has undoubtedly been bombed. Someone must have laboriously
picked these in the meadows.

The pilot is now working his way out of the crowd, still grinning
with embarrassment as he holds the sad little bouquet of field
flowers, when an NKVD man takes it from him with a quick tug
and returns it to the black-eyed Red Army girl. The pilot IooIk
bewildered. A second pilot is now shaking hands with General
Perminov. As he turns, the Red Army girl hands him the bouquet.
He also grins with embarrassment as the Soviet news cameras grind.
So on with the third pilot, the fourth, the fifth — all have their
moment with the town’s only bouquet.

We walk over to the near-by plank desk where the American
intelligence officer is questioning them. Soviet reporters also are
taking notes. The pilots’ stories do not vary. The total flight took
almost nine hours and midway they smacked their target — a little

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 1 45

town south of Berlin where the Heinies had cither a rubber plant
or an oil-cracker, the pilots weren’t sure which. Anyway, they
smacked this plant on the nose and got a fine black smoke column.
Looking out to the north they could see the British working on
Berlin — getting some good smoke columns going, too. No flak,
except right over the target. And not a fighter until they were
passing through Poland, just about where the ground fighting was
going on. The opposition wasn’t much, and their escorting P-38’s
had sure taken care of it — hit the Germans so quick they never knew
what happened. They might have picked off a Fortress from the
formation which came down on the other American air base — but
none from this. They had met the Russian fighters about 30 miles
inside the frontier, and here they were. A couple of fellows with
minor flak wounds, that was all.

What did they think of Russia ? They grinned. Pretty rugged,
they told the Soviet reporters. And things were sure messed up.
They hadn’t thought there’d be that much bomb damage,
but looking down at it through field glasses, even barns were
destroyed.

Were they glad to have made this first flight from England to
the Soviet Union?

Why, sure they were glad. Even the cooks were trying to get
signed up for it.

Why were they glad ?

Well, who wouldn’t be? Wasn’t it one of the longest missions
the Eighth had ever flown? And across the toughest opposition in
the world? And then, anyone likes to stretch his legs in a new
country now and then.

The Soviet reporters tried once again. Couldn’t they quote the
captain as saying that the reason they had so little opposition from
German fighters was because the entire Luftwaffe was probably
engaged fighting the Red Air Force over Finland?

The captain looked puzzled. Hell, he didn’t know anything about
all that. They ought to ask someone who knew about it. He was
only telling what happened.

What was the name of the town in Germany which they had
bombed ?

The captain couldn’t remember. Soviet reporters exchanged
knowing looks at such callow ignorance. The captain noticed and it
ruffled him.

He’d glanced at it on the navigator’s map, but to him it was just
one more of those targets. And getting them there was a navigator’s
job, not the pilot’s.

At this point there is a thundering explosion, then another.

146 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

Wcjump. “What’s that?”

An American reporter laughs. “Only ack-ack. The Russian girb
on those guns around the field probably noticed the newsreel truck,
and figured they’d help out with one of those Soviet salutes.”

“Hell, that’s no salute !” said another reporter. “Look there !”
He was pointing high into the sky. We could now see the ack-ack
shells bursting in ragged pufis, forming a fairly regular line. Ahead
of this line was the silvery streak of a vapour trail.

“German reconnaissance plane,” remarked one of the American
pilots, glancing up. “So they have ’em here, too. I’ve never seen
one shot down yet — they’re too fast. Come over us in England all
the time.”

I felt suddenly naked, with the enemy up there staring down.

“But don’t the bombers follow?” someone asked.

“They try, but they haven’t got a prayer. I mean we’re really
set up for them. Spitfires, night fighters, radar — they never get
through all that. I haven’t heard a bomb drop on our field since
I came to England, and the Germans are only about 200 miles
away.”

I was ashamed to feel so relieved. Still it was nice to know we
were at least 400 miles from the nearest German fields, with the
Red Air Force in between. The last Forts were landing. The Ger-
man reconnaissance plane, with pictures of our loaded field on his
plates, turned homeward and was quickly lost in the high haze.

But what good would the plates do ?

The group broke up. I went over to the administration building
— a large, brick affair which might have been something in connec-
tion with a co-operative beet farm, and ate cabbage soup and kasha
at the Red Army officers’ mess. Then I went over to the hospital
area, they showed me my tent and I wrote a V-mail letter home,
or rather one page of it, for just then an accommodating major
turned up who had heard I wanted to see the town. If so, he had
got hold of a weapons carrier and would be glad to take me. But
if I wanted to see the town, I should hurry, for the sun would be
setting soon.

I hastily signed the V-mail letter. I’d get this page into the box
today — and it should be in New York in eight days — the second
one could wait until tomorrow. The town was only half an hour
away and was a wreck. There had been little fighting in the city
but before they left, the Germans had dynamited everything, not
only public buildings but also those big concrete apartment houses,
which we find ugly but of which these people are so proud.

The Germans had been thrifty with dynamite— planted enough
inside to blow out all the partitions, ceilings and floors, but not

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS I47

enough to push the outer walls into the streets and block traffic for
the evacuation.

I asked the major what he thought of it all. He was a young
lawyer from Chicago. He said you couldn’t ask for better people,
but this system they had — that was something else. That was some-
thing you kept running into all the time. And people back home
who were fooling with the idea that we should have anything like
it — they should come over and see it for themselves.

Yet there were certain things about it, not compared to us, of
course, but to the rest of this end of the world. The way beggars
and little Arab boys tagged after you all over Africa and the Middle
East. None of that here. These people had real self-respect like we
do. The thing you noticed driving over from Teheran, was that
when you struck the first Russian town the begging stopped and
the kids stood on the side walk and smiled, instead of following
you. Maybe that came from the system, too — you couldn’t tell.

Now, the major said, take that bunch of flowers in his tent.
The day before a couple of kids had come past and he’d given them
a chocolate bar. They took it all right, and this morning they came
back with flowers they had picked themselves. Wouldn’t take any
more chocolate, because they said the flowers were to show their
appreciation of the Americans. A thing like that couldn’t happen in
Africa or in Iran, the major said.

I asked him how the American boys were making out with the
Ukrainian girls. We had got out of the car and were walking
through one of the town’s two beautiful parks. The gravel walks
were full of strolling people, mostly girls. Now and then we would
pass one of the Eighth Air Force boys with them, but they were
mostly gunners or radiomen. The pilots were tired and had gone
to bed at the camp.

The major said the G.I.’s were making out all right but reported
that you couldn’t get far the first night, which would go to show
that girls are pretty much alike wherever you find them. He said
they got along with very little language. For instance, if a G.I.
were telling a girl good night on her doorstep and if it were Monday
night, he’d say:

(which means tomorrow in Russian) but she’d shake

her head.

Then he would say, Z^fira-zoftra?^^ But she’d shake her head
again.

Then he’d say, and she’d nod, which

meant it was all right for him to come back next Thursday.

It was also helpful that many of the girls knew a little German
as a result of the occupation, for quite a few G.I.’s spoke some.

148 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

The major said the Germans seemed to have treated these Ukrainians
well, on the whole, and he found no bitterness against them as
individuals.

He said the region was stripped almost bare of men. The Russians
had taken some when the war began, then when the Germans
came in they took more, and when the Russians returned, they
drafted what was left. So the girls hadn*t bothered much about how
they looked. But then the Americans came in, and the first Sunday
after this the girls all turned out to walk in the park in their beauti-
fully embroidered peasant costumes, which they had washed and
ironed. You wouldn’t know they were the same girls, the major
said.

It was by now dark, so we left the beautiful park and returned
to the weapons carrier, but the driver was gone. The major couldn’t
understand it. The driver had said something about seeing some
girl for a minute, but he should have been back long ago. It was
half-past eleven when he did return, looking satisfactorily rumpled,
and this got us back at camp at midnight.

As we stopped to get out, we found the officer on duty by the
road.

“By the way,” he said, “there’s an alert on.”

“That so?” said the major. I was trying, in the dark, to make
out which tent in the alley was mine.

“How do you know?” asked the major.

“They phoned over from headquarters just a while ago. Said the
Red Army up at the front reported to the Russians here that German
planes passed over, heading this way.”

“How long ago?”

“Maybe half an hour.”

We went on down the alley between the tents. “We had one
other, about a week ago,” said the major. “Of course, nothing
happened. Well, here’s your tent.” •

“Thanks a lot.”

“Got everything?”

“Sure.”

“Sheets and a pillow case?”

“All made up.”

“Guess they thought they’d fool the Russians — sneak in without
being picked up and catch this loaded field before they could get
their night fighters up. Well, the Russians’ll probably show ’em.”

“Have you ever seen a Russian night fighter?”

“Why, no, I haven’t,” said the major. “Guess they keep them
on some other field. Anyway, with an alert on, they’re in the air by
now and maybe we’ll hear some. We don’t know much about how

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

they handle the defences, except for those batteries around this
field, of course. They’re strictly business, the Red Army is. Don’t
tell us a lot. Well, good night.”

“Good night.”

I went into the tent and turned on the flashlight just long enough
to see where everything was. The other cot was empty. I took off
my uniform and laid the pants carefully over the chair, using its
back as a hanger for the shirt and blouse. Then I put on my
pajamas. The camp was very still. I kept on my shoes because I was
going to the latrine, which was only about four tents away. When
I parted the flaps of my tent, I noticed, on the far flat of the horizon,
a tiny ball of fire which rose above the rim only a little way, then
curved over and winked out. As I stood there in my pajamas,
another curved over and winked out. They looked like balls from
a Roman candle but it could only be anti-aircraft fire. Now I heard
leisurely footsteps coming down between the tents and saw the
outline of a figure.

“Hello.”

“Hello,” said the figure and stopped. It was the voice of one of
the medical officers.

“Just going to the latrine. Watching the fireworks.”

“Where?”

I pointed.

“Yeauh, look at it,” said the medical officer. “It’s fire from the
other field.” Another figure came down the tent alley.

“Hey, look at that, George,” said the medical officer. The other
officer stopped.

“Must be trigger-happy over there,” he said. “Damn silly thing
to do. Because if a few German planes had slipped through, they
oughtn’t to light the place up and give away their position. Ought
to lay low and let the night fighters take care of them.”

“What are their night fighters like?” I asked.

“Never saw any of them,” said the second officer. “And, of
course, they never tell you much. But they wouldn’t have them
way back here. They’d keep them closer to the line.”

“Don’t know why they wouldn’t,” said the first officer. “What
more valuable target would they have to defend than a loaded field
like this?”

“Then maybe they do have. They saw that German rccco plane
this afternoon.”

“Well, where are they? And why are they lighting up that
target? Look — they’ve even turned on search-lights over there.
Looks like a goddam birthday cake.”

“Hell, they’re jusMrigger-happy,” said the second officer. “That

150 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

recco plane this afternoon and then this alert have got the ack^ack
girls excited. They want to show us how they can do their stuff.
Hell, no German bombers could get through to here. This is further
back from the line than any field in England.”

‘‘Listen,” said the first officer, “I think I hear the night fighters.”

We all listened. The camp was very still and there was no wind.
Was that a high hum, or only the roaring of our ears ?

‘T don’t hear anything,” said the second officer. And then there
was a bright flash and an explosion, and a tracer shell soared into
the sky directly over us. We had all jumped. Now we all laughed.

“For Christ’s said the second officer. “Now our girls have
caught it. Damn hysterical women !”

“Listen,” said the first officer, “why don’t we go down there by
the slit trenches and watch this from there? We can sec it just as
well.”

“ Might as well,” said the second. “But the girls’ll have probably
calmed down by the time we get there. You coming, White?”

“I’m going to the latrine. Where are the slit trenches?”

“At the edge of camp. But better let us show you first. Might
have trouble finding them in the dark if you really needed them.
Just take a minute.”

“Okay.” And since it would just take a minute, I didn’t bother
to step back into my tent for my uniform, although I was feeling a
little chilly. In my pajamas I followed them through the dark,
avoiding the tent guy ropes.

“ Here they arc,” said the first officer, and he stopped. Then some-
one seemed to have turned on a very steady, brilliant white light
in order to show me better. I saw the trench. I saw the parapet of
fine black Ukrainian silt. I even saw the design on my pajamas, in a
hard, white glare which lit up the leaves of distant trees.

“Jesus ! A flare !” said the second officer. “Listen, we better get
the hell down in this trench ! There are Germans up there ! ” Like
a sinister star of Bethlehem, the flare hung over the centre of our
field. By its light, we could see the silver wings of the fortresses
stacked around the runways. There were so many you could not
see the horizon — only the tilting silver wings. In the flare’s light,
they cast sharp ink-black shadows on tlie runway. We could see
the brown tents of our camp and the black wrinkles where the guy
ropes stretched the canvas. We could see figures from the camp
running toward our trenches but their faces were in black shadow
as this white light beat on their heads. The batteries were now
thundering away at the flare but as the yellow tracers soared toward
it, the blue- white glare seemed to put out their dull glow. It seemed
nailed against the sky but because it got brighter, we knew its

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

15 *

E arachute was settling slowly toward our field. Above, we knew
ombardiers peering through their sights, had us pinned down in
this ever brightening light. Our guns shook the ground. We kept
waiting for the first whistles. The people running toward us from
the camp were jumping in the trenches, and I remember feeling
annoy^ because any moving thing in that hard light might attract
attention. Suddenly the whisdes began — hissing, ripping, tearing
the air apart along its seams and ending in a dull roar. Then for a
few seconds the high hum of the fragments until tliey pattered down
on the grass like gravel.

I remembered I didn’t have a helmet. The trench was full now.
The others were wearing them. On a wooden box in my tent there
had been a helmet.

After the first whistle and explosion, I raised up. The flare had
died. It was dark again, except there was now a dull orange patch
out on the field which kept growing. Already one of our planes
was burning.

Another flare, more whistles and explosions. When 1 raised up
there were more dull orange patches and we heard crackling. At
least four planes were burning.

In the trench with me were some of the young pilots from the
Eighth and a few nurses and medical personnel. The lieutenants
were a little more frightened than the others.

“Gee,” exclaimed one of them, “nothing like this ever happened
in England.”

It was clear they didn’t know what to do. When they heard
those interesting whistles, they would stand up in the trench to sec
where they came from. Only after they heard the roar of the bomb,
would they drop down and hug the bottom of the trench. But
soon they got the idea and began bobbing up and down with the
rest of us — ducking for the whistles but raising up when the explosion
signalled danger was past.

“I didn’t have any idea it was like this on the ground,” said the
navigator. “ When you’re over a target, all you ever hear is your own
motor. Sometimes the ship gets jiggled. You see tracers coming up
at you or puffs of smoke ahead, but none of it makes much noise.”

After the first fifteen minutes it got worse. We quit counting the
fires on the field for the orange glows merged into one another.
That whole end of the sky was shimmering. Heavy explosions were
coming from over there which weren’t German bombs and weren’t
our ack-ack. But we couldn’t tell which were gas tanks blowing up
in our planes, or which might be bombs in their racks.

I tri^ to think when I had been as scared. Three times in England
it had been worse, when buildings I was in had been hit by bombs,

152 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

but each time it was over in a few seconds, and when the ceiling
didn’t fall, I knew I was going to stay alive. This was continuous.
And it was to keep up for an hour and a half. The worst thing
was the shaking earth. When the whistles came, crouching face
down in the trench with your knees hunched up to protect your
guts and your hands over the back of your head to protect your
skull, still didn’t make you feel safe if the dirt beneath your face
jarred or quaked from a big one. It reminded you that nothing
was safe. That one might hit right in the trench. They were hitting
everything else.

The nurses began to get hysterical and wanted to get out of the
trench and run. This was the worst thing they could have done, but
when a big one lands near by, everyone has the impulse for it
seems sure the next one will land right on you. Any place else
seems safer than where you arc. Every time one would land, a nurse
would scream. The boys farther down the trench were keeping
them quiet.

Next me in the trench was a chunky little Ukrainian girl of about
twenty, who washed dishes in the hospital mess. She had pulled on
a dress and brought along an army blanket from her bunk. She
was huddled down in the bottom of the trench, shaking and whim-
pering with her eyes squeezed shut and her hands over her cars —
sick with fear.

Everything was confusion except upstairs, and that was as neat
as an old maid’s top dresser drawer. The sequence was like this —
* first a flare, then a pause, and you heard the bombers come in on
their observation runs, to sec what was left and pick their next
target. Their motors would then die away and you knew they were
circling to come in on the bombing run. When we heard the motors
again we knew we would soon hear the bomb whistles, and it was
time to stop staring at the fires on the field and huddle against the
trench bottom.

It was like a page tom out of a textbook, telling how to bomb
under ideal conditions. I doubt if anything was so like the book
since the Italians bombed the Ethiopians.

The Germans seemed to be paying not the slightest attention to
the anti-aircraft fire. I began watching its tracers. Most were
directed at the flares. These arc hard to shoot down but they suc-
ceeded in rocking one of them.

Watching this, I suddenly realized the Russians were doing the
best they could with what they had. For it is impossible, on an over-
cast night, to hit a plane guided only by the sound of its motors.
Without radar, you have no idea where the plane is at the instant
you fire the anti-aircraft gun.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 153

Now came a sharp short whistle and a terrific jolt. I thought
our trench had been hit because the dirt came down on my neck.
The little dishwasher screamed. When I looked up, she was crawling
out of the trench but I got her ankle and pulled her back down
to squat in the trench beside me. She smelled of bacon dripping
and sweat and she chattered in Russian, whimpering and struggling
a litde to get away. To keep her from another quick break, I put an
arm around her and she quieted down. The next time the ack-ack
flashed, I saw she was smiling archly at me. Anyway this had taken
her mind off the bombs. The main thing was to keep her in the
trench so I would not have to jump out and drag her back.

Meanwhile I was quaking, and couldn’t be sure whether it was
from cowardice, which could not be helped, or from the cold, about
which something might be done. For we were not far from my
tent, where the uniform was hanging over the chair back.

So I decided to make a run for it, counting on the methodical
orderliness of the Heinkels up above. After the flare dropped they
had to make their observation runs, which allowed considerably
more than a minute. I checked the interval on my stop watch to be
sure I was right about the time. The next time a flare blossomed,
I scrambled out and ran down the alley to my tent.

My uniform was exactly as I had left it on the chair, except that
it was in tatters. A piece of shrapnel had even gone through the
brass eagle on the cap visor. The wall of the tent nearest the field
looked like lace. Through it I could see the glow of burning fort-
resses. I dropped the tattered uniform and snatched a blanket. That
would do almost as well. I grabbed the helmet but when I tried to
put it on I found that its owner had left it full of chocolate bars,
which had melted in the summer heat and in the cool of night had
hardened. I dropped it and only now noticed a sharp odour — not
cordite smoke, or maybe that and something else. By my flashlight
beams (the burning forts had ruined our blackout) I could sec
smoke from the other bunk. I pulled the covers back and found the
mattress glowing — some white-hot bomb fragments had lodged
there; so to prevent the whole tent from going up, I pulled it off
the bed and out into the alley.

The field was very beautiful — flames sky-high in a dozen places
and silhouetted against them were the wings of the other planes,
but now I almost tripped over what I knew instantly was a man.
He was lying in the shadow of my tent. I felt down in the dark.
He was warm and wet.

A couple of medics had ventured into the next tent alley. I
yelled to them and they brought a stretcher. But the boy was dead,
so they rolled him onto it and set it down in an empty tent. Then

154 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

I went on back to the slit trench. The medics followed soon with
another stretcher and another body. There had been two boys,
both of the Eighth Air Force. They had been asleep in the tent
next mine. The bombs had wakened them but by that time every-
body had left for the trenches. Not knowing where these were,
they had foolishly crouched down behind the canvas wall of my
tent instead of lying flat.

This one was still alive, so we made room at the end of the
trench and helped the medics lower his stretcher. The boy was
unconscious but he was breathing quietly. A doctor started working
on him in the trench and it took him an hour to die. He must
have had twenty holes through him — not one larger than a pea.

Now it started again. The two Eighth Air Force lieutenants were
angry.

“Christ, if we only had some Spits !“ one of them said.

“Just a dozen Spitfires !“ said the other, looking up at the sky.
“They’d clean out all that crap up there in ten minutes, and chase
the rest back to Germany, 'fhey couldn’t get away with this with
Spitfires around !’’

With the blanket I was warm but we were all irritable. When
danger lasts too long it is like a boredom so intense you think you
can no longer stand it. It seemed to me as the quarter hours slowly
went by that it was the longest B-picture I had ever sat through.
So far as I was concerned, this was where I came in.

Presently we could sec a man running across the field. He was
a technical sergeant who jumped into our trench and we got some
news. He said that one big 500-pounder, landing just beyond our
tent area, had wiped out an ack-ack battery, blowing all the girls to
bits.

He said the Russian field guards had been very good. Practically
all of them were staying with the planes, trying to fight the fires,
which was, of course, hopeless, and that at least a dozen had been
killed — a few by bomb fragments but most from stepping on
butterflies.

A butterfly is a small mine the size of a hand grenade which
parachutes down suspended from two flanged metal wings, hence its
name. It doesn’t explode when it hits the ground, but the jolt arms
it, and the next person who touches it, gets only one leg blown off
if he is lucky.

The technical sergeant said the Germans had dropped thousands
of these little devils and we should be very careful until it got light.

We were talking about this when suddenly there was a flash
high in the sky overhead. I thought maybe the ack-ack had hit a
G^man plane but Eddy Gilmore said it meant the raid was over,

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS I55

because it was a magnesium flash bomb, dropped to illuminate the
airport for the final photograph. When it was developed, if the
picture showed anything was left on the field, they might come
back tomorrow to finish off.

Looking at the pink sky, I doubted that they would need to
return. My watch, which I could read by the glow, said two
o’clock. However, we couldn’t be sure the raid was over. The
emlosions kept on. They might be German bombs or our own going
off in the racks of the burning Fortresses. And ammunition in
the planes for their 30-calibre and 20-mm. guns was going off
like firecrackers. Yet we were relaxing. Now and then someone
would leave the trench. I decided to make a dash to the latrine, for
which I had started more than two hours before, keeping to the
path, which I could see was free of butterfly mines. The latrine
was undamaged except for a few bomb fragment holes in the canvas.
I had been in there not more than a minute when there came
one of the biggest explosions I had heard all evening. Automatically,
I flattened out on the floor, fearing that this bomb was one of a
chain. It turned out to be only the big gasoline truck, which had
been parked near a Fortress and blew up belatedly.

Back in the trench they had new^s. More details of Russians who
had been killed on the field during the night. The Russians had an
improbable story about three mangled bodies they had found.
Although the bodies were in civilian clothes and apparently Russian,
the Russians themselves were sure they were disguised Germans —
maybe a German bomber had been shot down. Where was the
bomber? Nobody could say; they had only the three mangled
bodies.

Dawn was coming and with its light the glare from the burning
bombers paled. After all, the gasoline in a plane burns quickly and
then there is little left to smoulder but the electric wire insulation.
We left the trench, hoisting up the stretchers of the wounded, and
went back to the tents. My uniform was even more tattered than
it had seemed but I borrowed another. Then I began wondering
what was going on over at headquarters a mile away.

Since it was still half-light, and butterfly mines were thick, no
one else was curious, so I started out alone, picking my way care-
fully along the path. Once it disappeared into a fresh 50-foot crater
in the black Ukrainian dirt but tiptoeing painfully around its rim
through the weeds, I picked the path up on the other side.

The planes on the field to the right were a grisly sight, but I
was staring so intently for mines that I only glanced at them.

Just before I got to the building I saw Genera) Walsh starting
out in a jeep to surv ey the damage. The big building was untouched

156 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

except, of course, all glass was blown out. Nobody was in the
American wing, except a sleepy sergeant sitting at a telephone
switchboard who told me that all our radio was blown up and all
telephone lines were down, including the Red Army stuff. We were
cut off from the world and no one but us knew what had happened
at this field.

I went back down and at the door I had another idea. Why not
look in on the Russians, whose headquarters were in the next wing?
There was, for instance, Mr. Okhov, our conducting officer. What
were his directives for the day? Where, in point of fact, was Mr.
Okhov ?

Russian headquarters seemed equally deserted. There was no
guard at the door. I pushed it open. I called out. Then I started
upstairs. Nobody was on the second floor. I went up the next flight
in complete silence except for my footsteps echoing on the stairs.
There was a large door marked Staff Headquarters, slightly ajar.
I pushed it open. On the walls were the Stalin-Lenin-Marx pictures.
In its centre the director’s table. But in the chairs were a dozen
motionless Red Army colonels. A map had been spread before them
on the table, but none of them were looking at it now. Some were
sitting there with their hands in their laps. Some were leaning for-
ward with their heads on their hands, elbows on the table.

But, all of them were staring at the table.

When they saw my American uniform, the three nearest the door
sprang up.

With a smile and an apology, I started to back out.

But no, but no — what could they do for me?

It was nothing, I only wanted Mr. Okhov. Since he was not here,
I would hunt elsewhere.

No, no, I must come in. And would I please sit down? They
would find Mr. Okhov. They would have Mr. Okhov here at once.

But, 1 insisted, they need not trouble to. It was not an important
matter. And they were busy.

No, no. No, no. They were not busy. And the name again, please
— Okhov? If I would only sit down — just sit there and wait, just one
moment. Already a major was on the telephone demanding Mr.
Okhov. Impatiently snapping at the phone operator.

But when a minute of this did not produce him, I insisted firmly
that I could myself find Mr. Okhov, bowed my thanks to the
anxious Red Army colonels, and left them staring at the door.

Outside the building three correspondents trudged across the field
from the hospital area, also after news, and they brought some of
their own. They had gone to bed in the Pullman car. If it had any
bedbugs, they were ^ stunned into inactivity shortly after mid-

kEPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

157

night, when a bomb blew out all the windows. The reporters had
scrambled out of the shattered glass and into the ditch beside the
tracks, where they had spent the night. A bomb had hit uncomfort-
ably close to the ditch and three of the Soviet correspondents had
decided to find a safer place, which, of course, was foolish.

They had been killed not more than 100 yards away. It was these
mangled bodies which the Russians during the night had mistaken
for the crew of a German bomber.

I reported that nothing was to be learned here at headquarters.

“Why don’t we walk out on the field and look at the damage,”
said one of the correspondents.

“The Russians will stop us, of course.”

But I said I doubted that today the Russians would stop us. And
I told them about the colonels who stared at the table.

“Well, anyway,” they said, “we can start across, and if they don’t
like it, why, it’s a free country and they can always throw us off.”

So we started. Now we began to see many butterfly mines glitter-
ing in the weeds. We began wondering how many we couldn’t see.
So we formed a file, trying to walk in the footsteps of the lead man.
We took turns at the lead, as this was the position that really made
you sweat.

The trouble with this procedure was that we stared so intently
at the weeds ahead of each descending toe, that we could see
nothing of the planes around us.

So we changed it. Without talking, we tiptoed slowly a hundred
steps. Then we stopped to look around.

It was sickening. I had written the story of Clark Field in the
Philippines as it was told me by a pilot who watched the Japanese
destroy more than half our Flying Fortresses on the first day of
the war. Now the dead words I had written of the Forts, crumpled
on the ground with their backs broken, began to come to life. They
were still good words. I did not want to change them, only now I
knew what they meant.

I could not help admiring the workmanlike job the Germans had
done. Sitting up there last night, the squadron commander had
surveyed this flare-lit field as deliberately as a painter between brush
strokes appraises his canvas, deciding which colour to use. Where
the planes were thickest, they had sprinkled incendiaries — exactly
like the ones I saw them drop in London in 1940. Many had burned
out harmlessly in the grass, but some had hit planes which had fired
others. The burned planes were the story I had written before.
Their heavy motors tumble from their melting nacelles to roll
forward on the ground, their backs break in the middle, their run-
ning gear collapses and finally they lie flat on the ground like great

158 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

dead birds with silver wings outspread. The charred insulation sdll
smouldered.

In swampy places on the field where the planes had not been so
closely parked, the Germans had dropped small anti-personnel
fragmentation bombs — the kind which had made lace of my tent and
killed the two pilots.

These planes looked intact until we got a few yards away and
could see thousands of tiny holes in their aluminium skins, which
meant that inside fuel lines, electric cables and oil tubes had been
cut. It would take weeks or even months of repair and careful
inspection before these planes could be flown. Many would not be
worth repairing.

On the main runway strip the Germans had placed 1,000-
pounders. There were great holes in the concrete. So that was out.
Over the whole they had sprinkled these butterflies to make it
hard to fight the fires or to get on the field next day to clear runway
strips so that any intact planes could be put in the air. After this
thorough, orderly night’s work, they had taken a final picture and
gone home.

We picked our way gingerly through the butterflies to the edge
of the neld. We had seen it all.

Now we saw half a dozen men in Red Army uniform walking
toward us. In the lead was Lieutenant General Perminov.

“All right,” said a correspondent, “let them throw us off now.
WeVe counted them.”

The general began calling to us in Russian.

“He isn’t throwing us off at all,” said one reporter. “He’s only
telling us the Germans have strewn many mines here and we
should be careful.”

“What in hell does he think we’re doing,” inquired the fat
correspondent sourly, “playing leap-frog?”

The general now came over. He was a fine-looking man with real
military dignity and assurance. He had one of his men point out a
near-by butterfly so we would not fail to recognize them. We
inspected it gravdy and nodded our thanks. He was most courteous.

“The good ones always are,” said the reporter who spoke Russian,
and he said the general had told him they were starting to clear the
field of mines. Even now the dozen men were spreading out in a
long line, twenty feet apart.

“Then I wish he’d lend us an electric mine-detector to get back
to camp,” said the fat correspondent.

“Look,” said the skinny correspotident, “that line is starting to
move — ^sce, they’re going to sweep the field. But where are Acir
detectors — and what’s the idea of those long cane poles?”

REPORT ON THE RUSSUNS

*59

“My friends,” saud the fat correspondent, after watching the line
for a moment, “you will now see an example of mine detection as

E ractised in the Soviet Union, but you must first understand the
asic principles of that branch of military science,

“Elsewhere in the world it is divided into two phases: first, the
problem of detecting the mine and second, that of rendering it
harmless.

“Here you will note they are combined in the following manner.
They send a lot of Russians poking into the weeds with a lot of
poles. Presently you hear a loud bang and see a Russian rising into
the air on top of a column of smoke. This indicates not only the
detection of a mine, but the fact that it has simultaneously been
rendered harmless.”

“Jees !” said the thin correspondent. “Well, I guess they’ve got
plenty of Russians and plenty of cane poles.”

Yet this was not what happened. True, the Russians lacked our
elaborate electric frying-pan-type mine detector but, as always,
they handled their meagre equipment with such skill and bravery
that they got approximately the same results.

The line, holding its formation, advanced across the field. When
a guard saw a mine he would call out. The others would then be
ordered fiat on the ground. After the soldier had inspected his
mine he himself would lie down out of danger and, shielding his
eyes, touch it with the pole, whereupon it would explode harmlessly
in a twelve-foot pillar of smoke and dirt. The men would then rise
and the line move carefully forward.

Fascinated, we followed the line and were coming abreast when
General Perminov, courteously but firmly, ordered us back. As
guests of the Soviet Union we could share not even a small part of
its army’s dangers.

Back at the tent area. General Walsh ordered a new uniform
issued to me and told us to get some sleep because they should
have a runway cleared by noon, when a plane would take us back
to Moscow. Having walked across the field, I presumed to doubt
strongly that it would be cleared by noon, but I said nothing.

Departure was postponed first until one o’clock, and then until
three. As we waited at the control tower, where yesterday General
Perminov and his pretty Red Army girl aide had received the
Eight Air Force pilots, two big Liberators pulled up. One had a
few smaU bomb holes in its aluminium skin, but the mechanics said
they didn’t think any vital wires had been cut, and that probably it
would get us there. The other one was in fine shape, except that its
wireless was not working. They were the only two which could
fly today.

l6o REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

Meanwhile the Red Army was working tirelessly. The bomb
craters had already been plugged with sand and covered with steel
matting. It was a curious race against time. It was only a three-
hour flight to Moscow, but the ack-ack gunners there have orders
to fire on any unidentified plane approaching after seven o’clock.
Since all of our communications with the outside world were still
down, Moscow didn’t know what had happened at our base nor
could we tell them we were coming.

However, if we tried to hurry the Russian mine sweepers, it was
possible that our plane in the take-off might veer a few yards off
the runway into a butterfly. With a full load of correspondents and
lOO-octane gas, we were not anxious for that.

Waiting with us were four boys of the Eighth Air Force who
were also to go. Some time ago it had been arranged that they
should broadcast the story of their flight across Germany to America
from Moscow. They were looking very glum. Now much has
been written of the feelings of a pilot who loses a beloved plane and
some of it by me, so I thought I knew why and tactfully brought
it up.

“Hell, no,” said the second lieutenant, “they can make more of
those. But when do we get home?”

“What do you mean?”

“Some of us have almost finished our fifty missions,” said the
second lieutenant.

“And after getting mixed up in a big stinkeroo like last night,”
said another, “they’d be afraid some guy would tell what happened
at some Rotary lunch.”

“After what we saw last night, I bet they keep us in the army
until we’re thirty,” said the second lieutenant gloomily. I can truth-
fully assure the boys they are wrong; our army doesn’t work like
that.

Now the Red Army reports the runway is clear, they start warming
the Liberators’ motors, they count us. But where is our Russian
conducting officer? No one has seen him all day. Ever since
the bomb blew out the windows of the Pullman car last night we
have been capitalist sheep without our Soviet shepherd.

But all oF a sudden, just as we are climbing aboard to test the
thoroughness with which that runway has been swept, Mr. Okhov
arrives, still pink and white, still immaculate in the long, tubular
sky-blue Foreign Office overcoat. In his arms he carefully holds a
wilted little bouquet of field flowers, which we recognize as the
one which the pretty Red Army girl yesterday presented to the
Eighth Air Force pilots.

In war this country has little time to raise flowers but it loves

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS l6l

them no less for that. Mr. Okhov undoubtedly has a wife or a
sweetheart in Moscow, Nothing is wasted in the Soviet Union.

As a Postlude to the raid, I should here chronicle the fact that
within a week Marshal Stalin promised us permission to bring in
for the protection of these American air bases our own gun crews,
our own night fighters, our radar and other detectional apparatus.

This request had previously been made both when the air bases
were first established and immediately after the raid — but underlings
had turned it down because it would have meant increasing the
number of Americans allowed at the bases.

TEN

On our return from Leningrad, Eric had asked to talk to the head
of the Soviet labour movement. He knows the top American labour
laeders, gets along smoothly with the unions in his Washington
plants, and like me, was curious to see how free labour is over here.

We talked to four of them — one a woman about sixty, in charge of
building new housing for workers — but the head of the whole thing
was a very smart man of forty-three called Kuznetsov. He was
really keen. He’d lived in America, graduated from Carnegie
Institute of Technology with a master’s degree in metallurgy, and if
you tried to point out that his labour movement here wasn’t really
free, he’d come right back at you with some American example
trying to prove that ours was even less free.

Their set-up as he outlined it goes like this. All Soviet unions —
representing 22,000,000 workers — send delegates to the All-Union
Trades Congress. This he says usually meets every year or so but
hasn’t met for the last three due to the war.

This meeting corresponds to our AF of L and CIO national con-
ventions rolled into one. It’s strictly labour — no soldiers or farmers
are in it. This big Congress elects fifty-five of its members to some-
thing they call the Plenum. These fifty-five elect eighteen to some-
thing called the Presidium. And these eighteen have elected him
its secretary, which makes him head of the workers.

We asked him if all the workers belonged to trade unions, and
he said at least go or 95 per cent. So we asked him who didn’t
belong. *

“Well,” he said, “some apprentices are too yoimg, and then in

i 62

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

the reoccupied regions, it takes a little time to convince all workers
they should belong.*’

We asked him what the dues were, and he said i per cent of a
worker’s salary. There is no initiation fee, except that they sell you
a book which costs only one rouble.

“Now, is this a perfectly free union movement,” we asked him,
“or is it directed by your government?”

It was perfectly free, he assured us. Of course, he said, anyone
they elect to their Congress must be approved by the government,
but we could sec he considered this a very minor detail. It occurred
to me that in America, if some carpenter’s local couldn’t send a dele-
gate to their state or national labour convention unless the govern-
ment approved him, our unions certainly wouldn’t consider this a
minor detail — but let that go.

We tried another tack. “Are you a member of the Communist
Party ? ” we asked him ; he said he was. “ And the members of your
staff?” He nodded. “Any that are not?” No, they all were
members. Well, since the factory managers are all Communists too,
and since the Communist Party controls both under very strict
discipline, we felt that would leave very little to argue about between
labour and management. So we said, “What do the trade unions
discuss?”

“Working conditions in the factories, social insurance, housing,
vacations, and things like that,” he answered.

“Do they talk about wages?”

“Yes,” he said, “particularly the pay for piecework. Most of
these rates have been set during the war. Since we had no previous
experience, sometimes the rates were set too high or too low. The
factory bargaining committees discuss these with the management.”

“But if they can’t agree, what then?”

He insisted they practically always agreed. But if they didn’t,
they could appeal up to the Plenum or even to the Presidium, who
could talk the dispute over with the vice-commissar who managed
that particular trust. In that way, he said, amicable agreements
always are arrived at.

“Always? Aren’t there ever strikes?”

“Yes,” he said, “in 1919 a strike in one steel mill lasted two days.
And in 1923 there was another little strike in western Russia. We
were changing over from the old czarist money to Soviet roubles,
and it took time to get it all printed and out to the workers. As soon
as the situation was explained to them, they went back to work.
There have been no strikes since, and in the future there won’t be
any because our workers understand they are all working for each
other,”

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 163

“If a worker is discontented and gets discharged for any reason,
would it be difficult for him to get a job some place else?”

“Very, very difficult,” said Kuznetsov.

“ W^ell, isn’t this what the workers in America call an employers’
black list?”

“No,” said Kuznetsov. But he didn’t say why it wasn’t.

“Do you have any absenteeism?”

“We simply don’t have it without reason.”

“But aren’t workers sometimes a little late?”

“ Occasionally,” he said. “ The first time he is warned. The second
time he may be fined. If it happens again, he is discharged. If a
worker fails to co-operate, damages too much material or does any-
thing else which we consider serious, he may be arrested and tried
before a judge, and if he is unable to prove his innocence, sentenced
to a number of years’ penal labour. The rules in the factories are
very strict and rigidly enforced.” That gave us a clear idea of
how they handle absenteeism and carelessness. And, apparently, the
union officials encourage the workers to testify against a man guilty
of these offences — maybe they themselves bring charges against him.
But we had other questions.

“Is joining the trade union in any plant voluntary or compul-
sory?”

“Completely voluntary,” Kuznetsov said.

“How do you account then, for the fact that practically everyone
who is eligible joins?”

“It is to their advantage in any country, and particularly in the
Soviet Union, where the Trade Union Movement offers many
benefits. Here a union member receives greater sick benefits than a
non-union member. There is a housing shortage here and most
factories own apartment houses which they rent to the workers.
Union members receive first consideration. A non-union member
would have trouble finding a place to sleep at night. He wouldn’t
have access to the factory recreation centre, where they have dancing,
games, movies and meetings.

“All workers are entitled to vacation with pay, but non-union
members cannot spend their vacations in the rest centres maintained
for workers. If a worker is sick, the physician may recommend an
extra week’s vacation, and he can go to a special type of rest centre
equipped to care for invalids. But non-union members are not
eligible.” We could see now why they joined almost lOO per cent
and wouldn’t need a check-off, either.

“Then, if a worker is dissatisfied with his job, can he quit and go
somewhere else?”

“He may put in a request,” said Kuznetsov, “but the decision will

164 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

be up to the plant management. The head of the plant is a far better
judge of a worker’s qualifications than he is himself. So wc don’t
have your ‘migration of workers’ except as we need it to increase
production or evacuate plants because of the war.”

“Will this continue after the war?’’

“Why change ? ’’ he said. “ We must all work where we arc needed,
to further the progress of the Soviet Union.’’ That settled that.

“What per cent of an employee’s salary goes for rent in these
factory-owned apartments?’*

“Usually about 6 per cent,’’ he said. “Young apprentices live hi
rent-free dormitories. Older workers may live in them too, but they
pay. Skilled workers, or those who exceed their norms, arc entitled
to better quarters. Because their pay is more, their rent is propor-
tionately higher.*’

“What relations do you have with American labour?’’

“None at all with the AF of L,’’ he said. “We’re very much
disappointed. Also, their representative, Mr. Watt, criticized our
Russian Trade Union Movement at the last meeting of the Inter-
national Labour Organization in Philadelphia. He claimed we were
not a free movement. You can see that wc arc. I don’t understand
why your government would permit this criticism of our trade
unions.**

“Well, you understand America, Mr. Kuznetsov, you’ve lived
there. Our people have freedom of speech.**

“Yes,” he said, “but Russia is your ally. I can’t understand why
your government would permit it, and wc simply don’t understand
the AF of L. It probably isn’t the workers, but only the leaders
who have these distorted notions. Here we are sure that your
workers really want to co-operate with ours, only the leaders won’t
permit it. Wc do have serme relations with the CIO — letters from
Mr. Murray and several others. It is more sympathetic, and desires
to co-operate, and more nearly understands the true position of
workers in America and workers here. We hope some day we
can co-operate with the American labour movement. After all, we
arc worlung for the same cause.’’

Wc thanked him for giving us this information and as wc got
up to go he said to Eric, “You arc the first American businessman
who has ever taken the trouble to call on me, and I want you to
know I appreciate it. I know it is unusual for a capitalist employer
to call on the head of the labour movement in a Communist coun^.
And wc want you in America to understand our trade unions and
realize that it is a free movement here. I am highly honoured that
you should want to talk to me and I shall never forget your kindness
in coming.”

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 165

He seemed to mean every word of* it. I don’t know that I can
agree with him, but I thought he was highly intelligent and com-
pletely sincere. From the Communist standpoint, I suppose their
labour is free.

This evening I have a long talk with Jennie, our Intourist inter-
preter. To while away the days which we wait to see Stalin, they
schedule another theatre party for us. Eric has a slight cold and
declines, so Joyce and I do the honours. Afterwards Joyce, according
to protocol, is taken home first and then I am dropped at the
Metropole, where Jennie also gets out. She doesn’t live at the hotel,
which is operated by Intourist, but in one of a tier of rooms behind it.

Since we leave Moscow soon, we won’t see Jennie again, for
another interpreter has been assigned to us for the Urals trip. So I
ask her if she would like to walk across the square to the Moskva for
a bite of supper before we go to bed. The government has recently
opened its dining room as a night club — the only one in Moscow.
Here prices compare with those in its new commercial stores.

I apologize to Jennie because I have only 600 roubles — at our
cheap diplomatic rate of exchange this is $48 — but she says that as
an Intourist employee she gets a slight discount, and we should be
able to get something for that.

The Moskva’s dining room looks like Cleveland’s Union Station if
you put tables in the main concourse with napkins and cloths
that had previously done a week’s service in Billy’s Okay Highway
Lunch Wagon. It is crowded. The Red Army (which gets a 50
per cent discount) is there with its girls, all of whom are dressed
in pathetic finery — handmade from old remnants, and ornamented
with ribbon and ends of lace from the back of the top bureau
drawer.

There are also farmers in to spend their free-market butter and
egg money with their shapeless peasant wives who wear grisly
calico and heavy work shoes. There is an orchestra and a central
space for dancing. About one-third of the men are without ties but
all wear coats. A recent culture drive proclaimed that it is an
offence against People’s Culture not to wear a coat in public. I
wonder what they think of our neatly dressed army, in which
blouses are not regulation for summer wear?

Jennie calls the waiter, we show him my 600 roubles and pose
the problem. Since I am a foreigner, he is most co-operative. He
brings us each a small serving of caviar and potato on a wilted leaf
of lettuce, some gray bread and two bottles of beer. When we have
finished these, there are two demi-tasses and the total is exactly $48
in our money.

i66

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

It is little enough, but having been gorged by Intourist, I am not
hungry, and it is the least we can order as an excuse to watch the
crowd. The orchestra proclaims itself a jazz band, and obliges with
“Alexander’s Ragtime Band.” The sergeants and enlisted men arc
extremely acrobatic dancers and the officers wear their revolvers
even on the floor.

I had been in Russia for several weeks, taking the impact of a
system in every way alien to ours, smiling, being polite, saying
what was appropriate and kind rather than what I thought, and I
suppose this was why I presently began to unload on poor Jennie,
who after all was only a nice girl, doing her job.

It started with some remark of mine about what a pity it was
she couldn’t travel abroad, because if she ever came to America, I
would like to show her a night club there.

She said she supposed they were much finer. But that in peace-
time a different class of people came to the Moskva. The peasant
women in work shoes and the athletic dancers without ties were
war phenomena. And I must remember that most Russians con-
sidered these war prices as high as I did — that only a few could afford
to come.

“I suppose you are used to foreigners who try to tell you how
much better things are in their own countries?”

“ Even the Mohammedans,” she said. “They try to propagandize
me to become a Moslem. It is alw^ays the same.”

“Because you’ve never been out, you don’t understand why all
foreigners do it. I wouldn’t expect you to believe that your standard
of living here is less than was that of our poorest on WPA.”

“America, perhaps, yes. But it is not true of other countries. Our
boys have told me that when our army goes into Rumania, the
people there have welcomed them.” Then she paused and went on a
little defiantly. “Not the rich,” she said, “not the upper classes —
but the majority.”

“Rumania is the most squalid country in Europe.”

“But the majority welcomed us,” she persisted. “Not the bour-
geois, of course — ”

“What about the Baltic States? Did they welcome you there?”

She stopped a minute. “But some Americans are glad to become
Soviet citizens. I have talked with American comrades who have
told me how delighted they are to be in a land where there is work
for all. Many foreigners have become Soviet citizens.”

“Do you know how many of them later went to their embassies
to try to get their old citizenship back?”

“If there are many who do that, it is because foreigners cannot
endure the hardships of Russians. You must remember that during

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

167

the Revolution, everything was pulled down — all, all, I knew my-
self that world that was destroyed — everything, so we must begin
fresh. And have you ever read Martin Chuzzlewity by Charles
Dickens? He visited America when your country was young like
Russia. He talks of America then as foreigners now talk of Russia
— he says the people are crude, that they have no manners — ’*

“Have I complained of those things in Russia?’*

“Perhaps not you, but others. And Dickens says America is all
barbarous and slovenly, and that in America no trains are ever on
time. You have read Martin Chuzzlewit? Then you should do so
again when you are home. It will help you to understand Russia.”

“Did Dickens ever complain that America was not free?”

“No,” said Jennie slowly, “he did not say that.”

“I have never objected to Russian manners. Did he ever say that
in America people were not free to say what they thought and go
where they liked and do what they chose ? Of course, we were once
a frontier people. But we have become great because we were
free. And did Dickens complain he was not allowed to meet the
people ? Here you entertain us lavishly but we feel cut off from the
country.”

“But Russia has needed to be careful of foreigners,” said Jennie,
“because we never know when they will be on the other side.”

“But it is not America which changes,” I pointed out, “it is
Russia which is first against Fascism and then allied with it and now
against it. And did Dickens say that in America he saw always the
same statues of always the same leaders ? Did he say we had this
idol worship in America?”

“But it is not our leaders who want such statues. The people
themselves insist,”

“Our people like their leaders as much as you like yours. But in
all America I have never seen a statue of Roosevelt.”

“But our people are grateful — to our leaders and to the system.
Foreigners will never understand. It is because they arc opposed to
our system.”

“I am not. If I were as patriotic an American as you are a Rus-
sian, I should start in America a Society to Keep Communism in
Russia. If I were so patriotic I would say, ‘ So long as they have
this system, in spite of their great country and fine people, they can
never overtake our free system.’”

“But many of you like our system. And not only the American
comrades I spoke of. When I was in Murmansk, British sailors tell
me they would rather be in the Russian navy than in theirs. They
do not like that they must salute their officers, and eat at separate
tables.”

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REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

**But since then it is changed, isn’t it? Now your men also salute
and eat separately, don’t they?”

“It is still more equal. Even if what you say could be true, that
ours is not so efficient, I would not like yours. Because,” she said
proudly, “my dress may not be so good as an American dress, but
at least 1 know that no other Russian woman has a better dress !
Under capitalism a woman is a parasite. All day they do nothing,
or else play card games with each other. I would rather work than
do that.”

“So would our women. Most of them do. In our factories we
have almost as many as you. If they do not work as hard in their
homes, it is because their houses arc better and they do not need to.
And when you say no woman should have a better dress than
yours, then I would answer that your system is founded only on
jealousy. In America many people have better clothes than I and
live in finer houses. But I am not so jealous that I would pull down
a system which gives me good things just because it gives someone
else something better. In America we are not so envious. Here,
there arc more differences between rich and poor than in America.”

Then, Jennie said, of course there had been many changes in the
Soviet Union, some which surprised even Russians, but that I
should not argue with her for she knew little; I should talk with
those who had more training and they would quickly answer the
things I said.

I knew I had been foolish, overbearing and ill-mannered in talking
like this and tried to apologize.

“Only do not talk as the Germans did,” said Jennie. “They would
say patronizingly, ‘Communism is the best system — for Russia.’
They try only to be polite but it makes me very angry.”

Meanwhile the correspondents are seething. As soon as Eric sees
Stalin, we arc to start our trip across the Urals, into Siberia and
then down into Turkestan, visiting cities which no American has
been allowed to write about since the Revolution.

Several want to go along and Eric, who thinks Americans should
know more of Russia, wants to take them. The Commissariat of
Foreign Trade, which has charge of our trip, is willing (or tells
us he is) but adds that they must get permission from the Foreign
Office, which has charge of the movement of all correspondents.

And the Foreign Office suddenly says no. Why? Because,
obviously, since we cannot take the entire foreign press with us'by
plane, the others would be jealous.

But the reporters who have been invited have an answer to that.
They circulate among the others a pledge not to be jealous if the

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS l6g

invited reporters are allowed to go on our trip. Although a few
hesitate, ^ally they all sign and this document is triumphantly
presented to their sinister enemy, Petrov.

The answer? Again no. Again why? Just no. The corres-
pondents explode with rage. “Gentlemen, I must remind you that
you are in the Soviet Union.*’

In anguish they come to Eric. Everybody is willing but Petrov.
There is one man in Russia who can overrule the Foreign Office.
When Eric secs Stalin tonight, will he ask permission to take them
along? Eric ponders it. In all probability Molotov, head of the
Foreign Office, will be there. And they can be sure Molotov knows
that Petrov has refused.

Still, the correspondents insist, will he ask Stalin?

Eric says he is anxious to do so.

His appointment is set for nine o’clock at night, which is the hour
that important Russian officials begin their business day. They
work on until four or five o’clock in the morning and then sleep
until noon.

How long will it last? The ambassador says that depends on
whether Stalin is interested. Maybe they will be out in a few
minutes. With luck, they may stay an hour. Better count on half an
hour.

In point of fact the interview went off beautifully,* but the
big news for the reporters, when Eric returned at midnight, was that
Stalin himself had said they could accompany us. They had all been
waiting nervously, the “Field Marshal,” who represented his
syndicate, having decked himself out in his neatest correspondent’s
uniform for the occasion. Now they rushed jubilantly to the Metro-
pole to pack, as we were scheduled to leave at six o’clock. When we
got to the airport, we found Stalin’s orders had gone thundering
down through the bureaucracy and there were on the field two planes
instead of one.

Ours was a DC-3 — ^ Russian-built plush job which made
American versions look squalid. It had white silk curtains at the
windows, no safety belts (Russians don’t believe in them), a strip of
red oriental carpet down the aisle. American DC-3’s have a row of
double seats down one side and single seats down the other. This
had only single seats. Apparently, it carries fewer, more important
passengers, giving them plenty of leg-room.

Also with us were the patient Kirilov and Nesterov, president of
the All-Union Chamber of Commerce. What this body does I

• Eric Johnston has written his account of that interview in ** My Talk with Stalin/'
in the RtwUr^s Digestj October, 1944.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

170

never actually found out, but Mr. Nesterov was a most important
official in the Commissariat of Foreign Trade, a Communist fi:*om
boyhood and high in the Party. In dress and manner he constantly
reminded me of the late Andrew Mellon. He was quiet, perhaps a
little shy, and most intelligent. In addition there was a figure we
had come to know as “Nick.” Presumably Nick spoke no English.
At least he spoke none to us. But he had always been a part of our
group in Moscow and Leningrad, eating obscurely at the ends of
banquet tables and travelling silently in the front seat of the car
when we moved. The reporters identified him as the NKVD
man. In America a plainclothes man is frequently assigned to
distinguished visitois as a courtesy. Nick seemed to have charge not
only of us, but of any Russians who had contact with us. Finally,
we had as steward one of the two Intourist waiters who had always
served us at banquets. We had hoped all this was behind us, but ten
minutes after we were in the air, he was climbing up the aisle,
offering plates, caviar, and champagne.

The reporters also rode in a DC-3 uncushioned bucket-

seat job. With them was a hated censor from the Foreign Office,
a wistful young Russian called Zemenkov whom they spent their
time avoiding. Since he had never slashed any of my copy, I could
approach the subject of Zemenkov with a detachment which
irritated the other correspondents. I was to find he had a keen sense
of the ridiculous and was good company. The others regarded me
as a traitor to journalistic freedom. However, they w^ere so over-
joyed at having confounded Petrov that occasionally they could
tolerate the lowly Zemenkov.

Until wc reach the Urals, which divide Russia-in-Europc from
Russia-in-Asia, the country wc fly over is exactly as it was up firom
Teheran — the same thatched villages dominated by white churches
with red-painted onion domes. We crossed the Urals, which are, in
this area, not mountains in our Rocky Mountain sense, but low,
rolling hills, wooded with birch, oak, elm, maple, but no pine.

In a valley not far beyond them is Magnitogorsk, the Pittsburgh
of the Soviet Union, its huge blast furnaces vomiting smoke. As
wc come in for a landing we glimpse the usual patchwork quilt
of workers’ potato plots. Wc learn that this is no wartime phe-
nomenon, although of course the gardens are now more numerous.

At this airport, as at all the others we are to touch, we arc met
by the local dignitaries and important Communists — the mayor of
the town, the director of the steel plant and the Party secretary for
the province — all grave, cap-wearing Russians, well-dressed by
Communist standards. Zeeses take us across the city to the house of
the plant director, where w^c will spend the night. To reach it wc

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS I7I

drive through teeming, unpainted slums which are worse than those
of Pittsburgh although we keep in mind that Magnitogorsk is
crowded because many industries have been evacuated here.
Finally, we leave the slums and the road goes up a hill upon which,
overlooking the slums and the blast furnaces, are the spacious homes
of the executives — even as it is in Pittsburgh. We come into a paved
residential street with gutters, sidewalks, and big yards. Except for
architectural differences, we might be in Forest Hills, New York,
or Rochester, Minnesota’s “Pill Hill.”

Our cars turn into one of the cement driveways. The big house
is new and spacious, and the bathroom is, thank God, clean and in
repair, as things usually are in Russia when the comfort of some
reasonably important individual depends on them.

This is the first time we have been in a Russian home. It has
hardwood parquet floors, and on the big mantel are busts of Marx
and Engels. The furniture is dark, heavily varnished wood and
seems to have been bought in a suite. The central piece is an
elaborate settee with a plate-glass back.

In the dining room a long table is spread with cold mutton,
jellied pork, sausages, and, of course, vodka and wine — but we seem
to have left the champagne belt.

Now we get a closer look at the director, who runs these great
steel mills. He is Gregor Ncsov, a tall, stocky Russian, very much
the engineer type, and only thirty-five. He tells us his father was a
blacksmith in the Urals. We remark that he has a fine house but he
explains he and his family occupy only the top floor, the ground
floor being used for such ceremonious occasions as this.

Out in the wide garden we see three children playing with a
bicycle: two boys and a girl evenly spaced between eight and
fourteen. They are well-dressed and carefully scrubbed for this
occasion. They are obviously curious about us but they stay in
their part of the garden and self-consciously avoid looking at us.

When we sit down to dinner, an elderly woman in a white
apron, standing beside the table, directs the two plump servant
girls. We assume she is Nesov’s wife and Eric, through the inter-
preter, passes her several compliments on the meal. But we are
wrong; she is some sort of professional cateress. Mrs. Nesov never
appears but later, butting into the near-by kitchen for a drink of
water, I spot her — a pretty and well-dressed woman in her early
thirties, running the show from behind the scenes. Although she is
poised and most presentable, and although we eat several meals and
spend a night there and frequently pass her in the hall, none of us
is ever introduced.

At luncheon, Nesov tells us about Magnitogorsk. The town was

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

172

Started in 1916. There are now 45,000 workers in his plant, of
whom 25,000 arc construction workers, for it is expanding. Twenty
open-hearth furnaces and six blast furnaces are operating, two of
which were opened during the war.

The mountain which they mine contains an estimated 300,000,000
tons of ore which is 60 per cent iron, and another 85,000,000 tons
which will run from 50 to 45 per cent — quite a stock pile ! Eric
tells me that we have only about 100,000,000 tons left at Ribbing,
and are using these up at a wartime rate of 27,000,000 tons a year.

After lunch we drive back down the hill to the big steel plant.
There arc many workers on the road as this is apparently a change
of shifts. I am riding with a correspondent.

Suddenly our car turns out to one side as we overtake a long
column marching four abreast, on its way to work at the plant.
Two things are remarkable about it. The first thing is that, marching
ahead of it, behind it and on both sides, are military guards carrying
rifles with fixed bayonets. The second thing is that the column
itself consists of ragged women in makeshift sandals, who glance
furtively at our cars.

The correspondent nudges me. Nick, the NKVD man, is riding
in the front seat.

“Hey, Bill.”

“Yeauh.”

“Did you see what I saw?”

“Ycauh.”

Every writer who approaches even a minor theme is confronted
first with the problem of selection of material, and secondly with
the decisions as to which incidents shall be expanded, and which
he should merely chronicle, and the foregoing is a case in point.

I don’t know how those women got there or where they were
going, so I leave them as material for some mightier talent with
greater imaginative powers.

Entering the blast furnace section, the fumes almost choke us.
We stumble along for miles through piles of slag, across precarious
bridges over molten metal. The white heat of boiling steel pinches
our faces. Amid the din, the director bellow's two noteworthy
statistics at us; the first, that on a 1,200,000,000 rouble business this
year, he hopes to clear a 50,000,000 rouble profit. Secondly, that
in this inferno, they have per month only eight injuries per 10,000
employees.

By any standard it is not a tidy plant. If the floors were ever
concrete they have now been worn to gravel. Huge rusting chains
and all kinds of bulky metal rubbish lie around. However, all six
of the blast furnaces as well as the open-hearth ones seem to be

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

173

working furiously, turning out their 7^ tons of steel daily. This is
processed into everything imaginable from tank armour down to
wire.

The armament factory takes the prize for the most sloppily
organized shop we have seen in the Soviet Union. Stockinglcss girls
with crude sandals, lathing shells for the Red Army, stand on
heaps of curled metal scrap from their machines. Occasionally they
are protected from its sharp edges by crude duckboards.

Some attempt is being made to remove the scrap. We see two
girls carrying out a load of it on a Russian wheelbarrow, which is
a kind of home-made litter, with one pair of wooden handles in
front and one behind. It carries a modest wheelbarrow-load but
requires two people. They stumble along with it through the rubbish.

We watch them milling shells for the Red Army. There is no
assembly belt, but at one point they have devised a substitute. When
one operation is finished, a shell is placed on a long, inclined rack,
down which it rolls into the next room for the next operation.
Only the rack is badly made and now and then a shell falls off.
Instead of adjusting the rack, a girl is stationed by it to pick up
the shells and put them back on straight. This may or may not be a
waste of labour in this country where they have plenty of stout-
backed girls, but a shortage of people with the know-how to build a
proper rack.

We wonder how much politics has to do with the scarcity of
skilled brains here. Suppose the Democratic party was limited to
4,000,000 members, and that no man could hold a responsible job
whose loyalty to the secretzuy of its National Committee was in
any way questioned ? Many good men might have to be discarded
because they were not politically sound.

Now we go through a brick plant, and here Eric is in his element
for he makes brick in his Spokane plant. After inspecting the
product and the production line, he asks them how many workers
they employ, and how many bricks they make per month. Then
he figures on my reporter’s pad and tells them that his plant, by
using a different kiln system, turns out exactly three times as many
bric^ per worker. They have nothing remotely like it here; we
watch the women laboriously mo\dng bricks by hand after each
processing operation. They have a great respect for our technique
and tell Eric of their hope to instal improved machinery. As we are
leaving the plant, we see another long column of women marching
under guard.

Back at the director’s house we get a home-cooked dinner. The
cold potato soup has a chicken stock base. Rice and meat follow.

Later we go to a theatre which is new, attractive, and, of course.

174 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

crowded^ and here witness a fine Soviet soap opera having to do
with difficulties between a king and queen which in the end are
resolved to the satisfaction of all parties. The costumes and scenery
are good, and the acting is spirited.

A few hours on the plane brings us to Sverdlovsk, before the
revolution called Ekaterinburg because it was founded by Catherine
the Great. It was here in a cellar that the hard-headed Bolsheviks
shot weak-willed, well-meaning Czar Nicholas II, his wife and
family, later changing the name of the town. Sverdlovsk is another
Soviet Pittsburgh, bustling with a million people. This time we are
quartered in a hotel near the town’s central square.

The hotel makes me feel at home. It is exactly the kind of
structure that we built in the ’eighties and ’nineties — high ceilinged,
with tall, narrow windows, pretentious, of course, yet also airy. I
remember several like it in little Kansas towns in which we used to
spend the nights driving to our summer place in Colorado almost
thirty years ago. They had been built on borrowed money in the
days of the great land boom, when every prairie village was sure it
would be a city. And they stood dilapidated in those treeless
dust-bowl towns.

In this, as in the others, the electric wiring was installed later,
and the wires go up the sides of the walls and across the ceiling to
the fixture. But then I get a big surprise for they tell me this hotel
was built, not in the ’eighties, but in 1931 under one of the five-
year plans. This open wiring is modern Soviet construction. I had
thought that the cracked plaster came with age; this building,
already falling apart, is not fifteen years old. Now a look at a
typical Soviet bathroom. The toilet is of that ancient design where
you pull a chain. I notice that the pipes were installed after the
concrete had set. This is done by knocking a gaping hole in it with a
cold chisel and hammer, pulling the pipe up through the hole, and
then filling it in by dumping a little rubble and wet cement, leaving
an uneven place around the pipe to catch dirt. Why, in 1931, they
didn’t set the plumbing before they poured the concrete, and wire
the building brfore they plastered the rooms, is a Soviet construction
mystery.

Probably the contract-pouring trust wanted to set a speed record
and win itself a red banner, so it didn’t wait for the plumbers.

In this typical Soviet bathroom, there is no hot water, nor in the
basin is there a place where hot water can be installed. There is a
tingle faucet of brass, set in the exact centre. Hot water is not even
a (fim dream for the future.

By the toilet, here as always in Russia, sets what appears to be a

REPORT OK THE RUSSIANS 1^5

covered wooden wastebasket. This is for used toilet paper, which
cannot be flushed down with the other waste because Pravda and
Izoestia would clog the line. About once every week or so, after
the contents of this basket arc thoroughly ripe, somebody usually
comes around to empty it and bum the used paper.

Now we start out to inspect the plants. Sverdlovsk is the Soviet
centre for the manufacture of heavy machine tools. In one big shop
we sec a gigantic drop forge, made in Duisburg, Germany. I can
well believe that there are only four like it in the world. It can
apply pressure of 10,000 tons and we watch them pounding into
shape a huge piece of white hot metal which will become the roller
for a mill. There is near by a row of relatively tiny drop forges
fashioning crank shafts for tank motors.

But the plant itself is the same old Soviet story we have so far
seen — no light, dirty, bad floors, and in this one the roof leaks.
Outside there is a summer shower and we watch the water pour
down from the high ceiling onto the hot steel and get soaked our-
selves as we walk through. But we notice they have mended the
roof over the most important machines.

Now we start down a tank assembly line, and at the point where
they are welding the frames, I drop back from the party and ask
an old man who is a welder’s helper where 1 can get a drink of
water. Almost never do you see a drinking fountain in a Soviet
plant. He starts to lead me toward a room which from its smell I
recognize as a toilet, but thinks better of this and bids me wait. In
about ten minutes he returns with a glass, and a bottle of carbonated
water which obviously came from the director’s room. Nothing less
would do for a guest. The kindness of the people is touching.

I go down the assembly line to catch up with the others. The
welding on the turrets is ragged and would never pass American
inspection, but it is probably just as tough in battle. When we get
to the end they have a tank ready to roll, and as we come abreast,
it lumbers into the courtyard with an impressive rumble.

Now we go into the heavy artillery assembly room, which seems
to be the busiest and the most efficient part of the entire Sverdlovsk
plant, and hence on into the director’s office where they tell us
about what we have seen.

They were making a 48- ton tank and a 122-mm. gun. Before the
war Sverdlovsk turned out every year 30,000 tons of machine tools.
They have here both blast and open-hearth furnaces, plus power
hammers, punching equipment and presses, and they have produced
several io,ooo-ton pressure presses for aviation plywood. Normally,
they also make mine elevators, excavators and steam shovels.

Now their production is largely foundry parts for artillery. At

176 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

the same time they are turning out steel castings to rebuild industries
in the reoccupied areas. But in the picture is also much heavy
machinery for plants such as Magnitogorsk and Chelyabinsk.

Since the war the production of Sverdlovsk, measured in roubles,
has jumped almost sevenfold — from about 300,000,000 roubles to
more than 2,000,000,000. They are turning out six times the number
of heavy guns they made in 1941, and the fire power of the new
ones is much greater. But since they had 6,000 workers in the
artillery division before the war and 10,000 now, the efficiency has
increased far more than the production.

Before the war only 15 per cent of their workers were women.
Now more than half arc. Another 5 per cent are discharged war
invalids, and the average worker’s age is thirty years.

Johnston asks why only young men are ever directors of such
plants, and is told that older men are promoted to more important
jobs — that they are heads of entire industries and cartels. Appar-
ently, the Tom Girdlers and Eugene Graces of the Soviet Union
arc back in the Kremlin ; and it should not be forgotten that in 1937
the veteran executives of entire industries were purged, thus giving
these young men quick promotion.

Across the street from our five-year-plan hotel is the marble
opera house. It is a little too ornate, but Russians like it that way.
It seems to be the most substantial and carefully built structure in
town. I inquire and find it is the provincial opera house, built in
1903 under the Czar.

We attend and the correspondents arc eager, because maybe they
will see Katya. Who is she? Once she was a ballet dancer at the
great Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, but she got too friendly with a
foreigner and last year was sent out here to Sverdlovsk in Siberia.
The Sverdlovsk ballet is very good, but the boys don’t recognize
their old friend, Katya, and they don’t go backstage to inquire
where she is tonight. The NKVD probably wouldn’t approve
of half a dozen capitalist stage-door-Johnnies and it wouldn’t
help Katya.

Our Red Army pilot has us terrified. Yesterday we thought it
was an accident but today, en route to Omsk, he did the same
thing. Before you board an American air liner, they warm the
motors so there can be no faltering on the take-off which could
send the plane crashing into a fence. Then the passengers get aboard
and buclde their seat belts. The plane makes its run, is airborne,
and continues in a straight line until it has 500 or 1,000 feet of
altitude, before the pilot attempts even-so mildly risky a thing as the
turn which puts him on his course. When he does turn, it is an

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

177

almost imperceptible swing. Then he climbs to about 5,000 or 6,000
feet, which gives him time to pick a safe landing spot in case anything
happened.

^viet air lines* procedure is as follows. You get aboard. There
are no seat belts. There is no sign warning against smoking; if you
prefer to bum alive in a take-off crash, that is a matter of personal
conscience and no concern of the crew. Once the door slams shut
the pilot starts the motors which have been cold since the night
before. If they run at all he releases the brakes, guns the plane on
down the runway. You gather speed and clear the runway by
maybe ten feet. At this instant the pilot makes his turn by the process
of tilting one wing up toward the zenith and the other down until
its tip is digging potatoes on the adjoining farm. Once pointed
on his course he levels off and if there are no mountains, he con-
tinues at this altitude of from 50 to 100 feet, scaring Kolhoz cows,
Sovhoz chickens, and the passengers.

We recall that when this procedure left American pilots wide-
eyed, the Red Air Force would ask them, “What’s the matter, are
you afraid to die?”

“The answer for me is ‘yes,’** says Joyce. “Now if I had to live
in Russia, I might feel differently.”

The country below us is changing. It is dotted with lakes as
round as pancakes, which look as tough as though they were craters
made by a bombardment of giant meteors, they are so regular.
These are fringed with pine forests but we are so far north that
even this growth is sometimes scant, like timberline trees in the
mountains.

At Omsk the delegation of dignitaries shakes hands with us as
we step off the plane and tells us that our bags will be left at the
airport, where we will spend the night. We inspect our rooms.
They arc spacious, yes. Clean, yes. But — Well, not a single but.
The building is excellent, modern, simple and in good repair. Fur-
thermore, it seems substantially constructed in contrast to the clap-
trap jobs we have seen. Joyce and I will share a bedroom with big
French windows, and a sitting room.

Now off to the factory, but first the director. He is Constantin
Zadarochni, forty-seven years old. His father was a carpenter, his
mother a laundress. Before the war the Omsk plant had only 3,000
workers, and repaired locomotives. Now 1 5,000 make tanks.
Zadarochni was formerly director of the Stalingrad Tractor Factory.
Omsk before the war had a population of 320,000 and now has
514,000 — evacuated workers, of course.

Eric goes into business figures. The director says that last year
the plant did a business of 375,000,000 roubles but took a 7,000,000

178 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

rouble loss, caused, he says, by the expenses of capital investment.
Apparently, there was no operating loss. But, he says, last April
(1944) they got out of the red and will continue so the rest of the
year. As sidelines the plant makes engines for fighter planes and
optical equipment for the army.

We inspect the Mayor of Omsk — Kishemelev Kuzma. He is
forty-four, and this is his second year in office. Before that he was
Director of Automobile Highways, a title which is confusing to
us, since the Soviet Union has few passenger cars and almost no
highways.

We ask him how he got elected and he answers promptly that
the people did it.

But how?

Kuzma goes into detail. There were in all five candidates, each
representing one of the various trade unions. Everybody in Omsk
could vote, he says, and of course the ballot was secret.

Is he a member of the Party?

Oh, yes.

Who were the other candidates and what were their platforms ?

One represented the organized white-collar workers, and the
other three represented unions in the Machine-Building Trades. He
explains proudly that he led the field with 28 per cent more votes
than the others combined.

Was he the only Communist Party member running?

No — there was one other.

And did this man run second?

By a coincidence, he did.

Well, just how does Kuzma explain his handsome majority?

That’s simple — it was due to the discipline and authority of the
Communist Party. He was its official candidate, endorsed by the
Party organization. In addition he is a veteran of the civil wars of
1917. He has two orders and one medal — here he points to the
ribbons on his chest.

Then we ask if, in any Russian city, any non-Party member has
ever been elected mayor.

He thinks a minute. Then he says he doesn’t know of any big
city, but he has heard that occasionally in the villages men who were
not Party members have been chosen mayor.

What we should have asked, but didn’t, is whether in any town,
large or small, any candidate endorsed by the Party has ever been
beaten by someone it opposed.

How free can an election be when one party controls the press
and the radio? I am sure they go through the forms of a secret
ballot and an honest count. But if any candidate should attack his

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

179

Communist opponent vigorously he runs the risk of being arrested
by the NKVD as a political offender and hustled off to the salt
mines in the middle of his campaign. Is the Party only letting the
people play with the forms of democracy? Never having known
anything else, they think they have the real thing.

We now inspect the factory where they are turning out eight
tanks a day. Sixty-five are on the floor as we go through — 36-ton
models mounting a little 45-mm. gun. On the whole the plant looks
clean — well above the average of what we have so far seen in Russia.

A remarkable thing which I cannot explain but only chronicle:
as we leave Moscow there seems to be a definite improvement in
plant efficiency and also in girls. Their skins arc better. The breed
hasn’t changed. But there is a definite sprinkling of pretty ones
on the assembly line of this factory. Maybe it is vitamins or more
sunshine. Whatever the reason, we all agree on the result.

A curious thing happened to me. Omsk boasted a very attractive
female Tass correspondent who was covering our trip for the
local press. I rode with her in a Zees from the airport to the plant,
and since she spoke a little German, we got along well. She was
about twenty-five, pretty, simply dressed, lively, and most intelligent.
I was trying to find out something about Russian newspapers
and she was making me promise to corral Eric for an interview.
In the plant we were walking together, she translating for me
ahead of the interpreter. It was all going well until I left her for a
minute to speak to Eric. When I turned back, I saw that Zemenkov,
our Foreign Office man, and Nick, the NKVD plainclothes man,
had each grabbed her by an elbow and were hustling her along,
lecturing her angrily.

Now there are so many possible offences in this country that it
did not then occur to me to wonder which one she had committed.
I regarded it as an intra-party matter into which no tactful foreigner
should intrude. Presently, they dropped her elbows and after a
discreet interval, I walked up beside her, picking up the conversation
where we had left it.

But she would neither answer nor look at me. After a couple of
trials I fell back, trying to think what I could have said that offended
her. Only she didn’t seem offended. It was at least fifteen minutes
before it occurred to me to wonder what Zemenkov and Nick
had said. Then I discovered the correspondents laughing at me.
They had seen the whole thing.

“Didn’t you know? Hadn’t anybody told you? You didn’t
think they’d let you talk to the people, did you?”

I was annoyed and decided to stop this foolishness. Up to now I
had been able to view the Soviet Foreign Office with some detach-

i8o

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

ment. But this time it had happened to me. No use tackling Nick,
who was a dumb cop and spoke no English or pretended he didn’t.

So I collared Zemenkov and asked him what the idea was in
telling the girl she couldn’t speak to me.

I was a little surprised that he didn’t deny it but only laughed
and looked sheepish.

Finally, he said he hoped I wasn’t complaining of the quality of
Soviet hospitality.

Not at all, I said, but if he came to America, he would find that
nobody would be detailed to go around scaring people he tried to
talk to. One of the reasons we were able to get things done was
because we didn’t have any army of able-bodied men tied up to
spy on our Allies. Then I said I now understood the purpose of the
new Foreign Office uniform: it was useful in frightening women.

Zemenkov did not like this. I had not intended that he should.
All across Siberia I kept at him. Every time some battered old crone
would hobble across our field of vision, I would cry out, “Zemenkov
— quick, a woman ! Do your duty — get out and warn her against
us!’’

By the time we were swinging down into Turkestan he was
reduced to the point where he was humbly bringing up females
for me to meet. I thanked him elaborately for these tender offices
but spurned them all. I explained I was able to handle these matters
without the services of a bureaucracy. All I asked was that when
I did find someone I wanted to talk to that he refrain from scaring
them away. In the end we became good friends. I found that he was
an avid reader of Mark Twain and could quote comic passages from
his most obscure short stories. When this bond became established,
he cither quit scaring people away from me, also passing out the
word to Nick, or else they did it so discreetly that I was unaware.

But back to Omsk. The day reduced poor Joyce to a pulp and
after the third factory he quit. Not ostentatiously, but quietly.
When the cars would stop he would shuffle his feet as though
about to get out and trudge through with the rest of us. But instead
he would remain in the back scat, peering furtively after us but
ready to break into a weakly guilty laugh.

That night they took us to a concert in a beautiful auditorium
in a park. We should have enjoyed the concert more, for the per-
formers were as good if not better than you would find in an Ameri-
can town of 300,000. The programme was well selected. The people
were enjoying it very much.

But we were enjoying the people even more. Between the acts we
watched them promenade. It was a decently dressed, healthy-
looking, friendly crowd, as curious about us as we were about theim

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS l8l

After all the champagne which had been crammed down us at
the afternoon banquet I wanted a drink of water and so did Dick
Lauterbach, so instead of going back into the hall we started out
to locate a fountain. This should have been easy, because we were
in a big culture park. We had gone three steps when a man in
uniform stepped out and inquired what we wanted.

“Oh, hell,” said Lauterbach, “there it begins.”

“He’s just a friendly Red Army guy.”

“ Red Army, hell. NKVD. You tell them by that blue hat band.”

“ Maybe he knows where there’s some water.”

Dick explained. The NKVD man beckoned very politely and
we followed. And as always, the minute you get off the beaten
track, things get interesting. He led us around back and opened
a door, revealing a banquet table laid with the familiar pastry and
champagne glasses. Only, mercifully, it wasn’t laid for us. It was
for the artists when the concert was over. Water ? That they didn’t
have, and immediately offered us champagne which was exactly
the last thing we wanted; so, following the NKVD man, we started
out across the park. We walked along well-kept, winding gravel
paths for perhaps a hundred yards until wc came first to band music
and then to an open-air pavilion where about 300 people were
dancing.

After leaning over the fountain to drink, we stood watching the
dancers. Except for a few overgrown boys, they were all girls
in light summer dresses dancing with each other.

Every minute we expected the NKVD man would lead us back
to the concert but he didn’t. Then he said something to Dick in
Russian.

“I can’t believe it !” said Dick. “Know what he said? Asks us
wouldn’t we like to go up there and dance with some of them.”

“Tell him, sure.”

“It just can’t be true,” said Dick, as we walked around toward
the gate. “It would be impossible in Moscow.”

“This is a good guy. He understands we’d like to know them.”

“Sure, a country boy that doesn’t know big city ways. He’s so
dumb, he’s human.”

The girls are very pretty. The first one I dance with is from
Leningrad. The next was bom here in Omsk. The third is also from
Leningrad.

“You wouldn’t believe,” says Dick, “that some of these arc the
same grease-monkeys we saw in the factories this afternoon. Shows
what a bath and a clean dress will do.” The NKVD man is standing
back by the entrance, looking on in a fatherly way. Every time
the music stops the crowd, staring at us, very politely begins to

i82 report on the RUSSIANS

edge our way and then one, bolder than the rest, tries out his half-
dozen English or German phrases.

“Gee !“ says Dick, “and with the NKVD man standing right over
there. I suppose so few foreigners come through here that these
people haven’t learned it’s dangerous to talk to us. A thing like
this could never happen in Moscow.”

The next girl is from Dnieprostroi, and the next from Tashkent,
down on the Chinese border. She is studying to be a doctor and
she dances beautifully.

But it is long past the intermission so, thanking the NKVD man,
and telling him he is the most regular guy we have met in the
Soviet Union, we go back to the hall.

When we return for the night at the airport, I watch Joyce
taking his usual precautions against oxygen. He closes the bedroom
windows tightly against the summer air. The sitting room door
that opens into the corridor is already closed. But I am mystified
when he shuts the door connecting bedroom and sitting room,
since the air in both is presumably the same. Then I realize that
when the small amount of oxygen in the bedroom is exhausted,
he will not then be threatened by additional oxygen percolating in
from the sitting room.

For some reason I couldn’t sleep, and at about two I tiptoed
quietly out and down the hall toward the empty airport waiting
room for a cigarette. Only it wasn’t empty.

Sprawled on the benches were two khaki-clad figures who sat up,
blinking sleepily. One of them asked me something in Russian.
Before I could explain I didn’t speak it, the other one said, “Hell,
Tex, he’s no Russian.”

“No,” I said, “I’m an American. You guys Americans too?”

“I should hope to kiss a horse we are,” said Tex.

“Who are you and what are you doing here?” said the other.
“By the way, what’s the name of this burg?”

I told him what I was doing here and that this was Omsk.

“Omsk,” he repeated sourly. “Well, good place to wait for a
plane as any. Time is it, Ed?”

Ed looked at his watch. “’Bout two.”

“’Nother hour,” said Tex gloomily.

They told me they’d been assigned as technical advisers on a
big war construction project.

“A mine up north,’’ said Tex. “And now wc’rc going out.”

“How was it?” I asked.

“Not bad,” said Ed. “Of course at this little burg, they set up
a whole Intourist Hotel to take care of us, because we were foreigners.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

183

Brought in a supply of wine, cheese, cigarettes, candy, noodles, and
dried eggs. For the rest, we were supposed to scavenge off the
country. Of course, they sent in a cook and an assistant cook, a
book-keeper — in all about ten people taking care of us.”

“How did you get along with the Russians?”

“Very friendly the first day. Said next week you must come over
to dinner. But that was all we ever heard of it. Although one or
two apologized. Seems word had passed out it was against govern-
ment policy to have anything to do with us. On the job they were
nice guys, though. We would help each other with Russian and
English lessons, but that was as far as it could go.”

“Had a Russian-English primer that was a honey,” said Tex.
“The first sentences were, ‘ Miners in America get very low wages,’
‘Great Britain is a capitalist plutocracy,’ and ‘The Soviet Union is
surrounded by enemies.* There was stuff like, ‘Ivanov invented
electricity,’ or ‘Petrov first harnessed steam,’ names you never heard
of. Certainly gives them a cock-eyed picture of the rest of the
world.”

“ We went to a movie one night,” said Ed. “They had an Ameri-
can film — Deanna Durbin in ‘100 Men and a Girl.* Only by then
we knew enough Russian to read the sub-titles they’d put on it.
These had it that poor old Deanna was the victim of capitalist
exploitation, her old man was jobless and on the bum. Then in that
place where she gets something to eat, they’re only giving it to her
to watch her make a fool of herself so they can laugh at her bad
manners. It was all we could do to stay in our seats.”

“Even if they had been allowed to ask us to dinner,” said Tex,
“not many could have done it. Home life is pretty sketchy. Except
for the top guys, most of them eat in community kitchens and sleep
in dormitories, even in the villages. And sometimes the kids live
together in a pile. At least there was a little town near our project
which has a normal population of about 3,000. They had some land
of school or orphanage with 1,200 kids. I assumed their parents
had been killed in the war. But they said no, only a few. Mostly
they seemed to be just kids nobody wanted. Whether that’s typical
of the whole country I don’t know.”

“ We didn’t really get to know many Russians,” said Ed. “ Except
it was different with the girls. They have some fine girls and no-
body seems to mind if you take them out. We suspect they might
have been assigned ta us. Or anyway had to tell the NKVD
whatever we said.”

*‘We know they gave the hotel employees a lecture,” said Tex.
“Said we were foreigners, and anything we did they must report.
Very suspicious.”

184 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

‘‘Now, of course,” said Ed, “if you arc out from under super-
vision of the NKVD — like for instance you’re on a train headed
some place — all the people are friendly as hell. You couldn’t ask for
better. But once you settle down in some place to work, they let
you alone.”

“How do they run their mines?”

“They sure do things different from what we do,” said Tex.
“Instead of having big construction firms, they call them trusts —
and most of them are branches of one big central trust. Whether
they bid against each other for a particular job, I wouldn’t know —
anyway they’re supposed to show a profit.”

“Now you take any ten-year-old American child with a Meccano
set,” said Ed, “and he’ll start at the bottom and build up; But these
Russians always start at the top, build the roof first and then raise it.”

“And work like hell, so they can throw up some kind of a frame-
work that they can hang a red flag on the tip of and make speeches,”
said Tex.

“Oh, but first thing,” said Ed, “they always put up a tribune to
make those speeches from, and hang big pictures of Stalin and
Lenin. And, of course, those big boards for the names of what
workers have done the best. You’ve got to wait until those are
finished before they’ll even let you break ground for the foundations.”

“All those pictures and speeches are because Russians are not
steady workers,” said Tex. “Or maybe it’s part of their system.
Anyway, they diddle and putter around about nine-tenths of the
time, telephoning each other and nothing gets done. Then all of a
sudden they hop up on those platforms, and make a lot of big speeches
about Stalin, get themselves worked up under a big head of steam,
pitch in and get it cleaned up in record time. Except for the weeks
they wasted talking. They call that Socialist competition.”

“But we wouldn’t know why,” said Ed.

“The worst thing is they’ve got no respect for materials,” said
Tex. “Never own^ anything themselves. It belongs to the state
so what the hell do they care? They have no conception of how
much work has gone into making them. I’ve seen them unload
valuable pipe from a flat car by just rolling it down an embankment
— smashing hell out of it. And fire brick for smelters the same
way. It’s cut very accurately and you can’t use chipped ones. The
way they’d heave it off, about 25 per cent would be damaged.”

“When we’d try to stop it,” said Ed, “tl^y explained they had
a law in Russia because of the freight-car shortage, that they had
to be unloaded within two hours after arrival. No one seemed to
see it would take more cars to bring more material. Or maybe they
didn’t care.”

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 185

“Wc were only consultants,” said Tex, “and if they got tired
of us hollering, they’d get around it by not supplying us trans-
portation out to the job. They’d say our chauffeur couldn’t be found.
Which was nonsense, because he was picked by the NKVD, and
if he took a five-day vacation, he’d be shot.”

“They don’t understand mechanical stuff,” said Tex. “They put
things up out of plumb and then blame this trouble on poor Ameri-
can design. So they take it down and start all over. Once we saw
them assembling a complicated steel frame out in a field, instead
of on its foundation. When we asked why, they said they wanted
to be sure it would fit.

“ One of the mines needed more air so we designed a fine ventilating
system. They redesigned it. We protested, but they went ahead any-
way. When it didn’t work, the poor architect committed suicide.”

“We would explain to them how to do a job,” said Ed, “and
they’d listen attentively and then do it their own way.”

“We were always asking for conferences — not they,” said Tex.
“If the work was to be kept rolling, we had to know their plans.
Now and then we’d get the top director out of his fancy office,
and he’d see what was wrong. Things would go better for a while.
But their system is unwieldy. Sometimes he would pick up one of
the four telephones on his desk and issue a lot of orders. But then
nothing would happen.

“The top director and his engineer were sincere and capable, but
their system bogs them down with detail and paper work. They
even have to sign warehouse receipts — things that in America we
leave to an underling. It’s like civil service back home. There’s a
hell of a lot of conversations — we’d complain, they’d listen and make
decisions. But definite instructions often don’t get out to the men
in the field, and the top men haven’t time to get out of their offices.
The trouble with the whole country is there aren’t enough capable
men to carry out orders.”

“I think it’s their system,” said Ed. “It doesn’t give them the
drive, the personal ambition, the incentive that ours does. And it’s
so complex — they have to talk to so many people before anything gets
done. The Communist Party has a set-up which duplicates every-
thing in the industry. In every organization the director is a Party
member and the engineer sometimes is. Party members are the only
ones who can ever get anything done in Russia. But even they are
slow. Yet on our job they really wanted to work with us. But in
general, they could never be a competitive threat to America. We
can always build in a year and a half anything it takes them ten
to do.”

“Are their engineers well trained?”

l86 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

**Somc,” said Tex. *‘Thc best engineers were the NKVD.**

*‘But isn’t that their secret police organization?”

Sure. You see, in Russia they don’t have our penitentiary system.
They herd prisoners into labour gangs, and the NKVD, which has
charge of them, has developed a fine engineering staflF. They bid
on construction jobs, supplying both the engineers and prison labour.
Often the engineers are also prisoners.”

*‘On our particular project,” said Ed, “there were about 70,000
workers, and half of these were prisoners. Mostly women. The
prisoners were assigned to separate huts. But on the job the only
way you could tell them from the others was that they were under
guards with fixed bayonets.”

“Prisoners are a subject in itself,” said Tex. “You see, in this
country there are so many ways to do things wrong or talk out of
turn, that somewhere between thirteen and fifteen million arc
always in prison. They put them to digging canals, or building
railroads, or on jobs like ours. Then there are a few million more who
are arrested and found guilty, but only sentenced to keep on working
at their old jobs with reduced pay. Those are the lucky ones.

“The others, when they’re arrested, just drop out of sight. If
your wife is really fond of you and works hard, maybe in three
months she can find out where they’ve got you and what the
charges arc. Then, if she hires a lawyer, she may get the right of
correspondence, which means she can write you once a month, and
you can write twice.

“ Usually no letters are allowed, particularly for political prisoners.
But since the food shortage, his wife can send fo^ parcels. If the
prisoner dies, they always send the food parcel back with a sticker
saying the guy is dead. So then she gets to eat the food.”

“Which is only fair,” said Ed.

“I didn’t say it wasn’t,” said Tex.

“Politicals get the roughest deal,” said Ed. “They have NKVD
spies in the markets and hanging around the store counters, waiting
for someone to pop off. They usually get ten years chopping wood
with no correspondence, and 500 grammes of bread a day. Of
course, if you arc husky and can work hard, they’ll give you more.”

“If you miss getting typhus and live out your sentence,” said
Tex, “they turn you loose, but your passport has a red line through
it. That means you can never get a house or a good job — ^you’ve
got to keep moving.”

“Or you may not get sentenced,” said Ed, “just arrested and
investigated. If things don’t look quite right, then you get a pass-
port with letters in front of the numbers. This means that you are
under some suspicion, and can never hold a key job.”

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 187

“Only about half the workers on our project were prisoners,”
said Tex. “The rest were what they called free labour. Various kinds.
Some were draft-age men with physical disabilities who had been
classified for limited service and assigned to labour duty there. Some
were evacuees from suspected sections — maybe they’d lived near
the frontier or else in Poland or the Baltic States so they didn’t
trust them.”

“Tell him how they were housed,” said Ed.

“Oh, yeauh. They dig a pit about 10 feet deep, 20 feet wide and
100 feet long. Then they make a peaked roof of pine logs over this.
The mattresses lay on the cold dirt.”

“How did they work?” I asked.

“They were supposed to work twelve hours a day. They’d work
about an hour and sleep the other eleven.”

I suppose I looked incredulous.

“Isn’t that right, Ed?” he asked.

“ Well,” said Ed, “some of the women were better. Worked from
30 to 50 per cent of the time.”

“Didn’t get enough to eat — any of them. We used to watch them
being fed,” said Ed. “Each prisoner was supposed to provide him-
self with two American tin cans that he fastened to his belt by a
wire. They’d haul out one kettle of soup, and one of kasha. Some
days the food truck would have fried fish on it, and they’d toss
this out over the tailboard like you’d throw fish to a bunch of seals.
We couldn’t sec that the food of the free labour was any better.
Nobody gets enough to eat, and they hardly had the energy to
walk around.”

“Some engineers weren’t getting enough to eat, either,” Tex
pointed out. “Of course, supervisors live in town, and their ration
cards vary. They go to difl’erent commissaries, run by whichever
trust employs them, and some trusts rustle better grub than others.
But all of them have to buy extra food at the free market. Trade
their clothes and extra possessions until they are stripped.”

“You sec a mining engineer gets about i,8oo roubles a month,”
said Ed. “They get one room for which they pay about 30 roubles.
All they can buy on their ration cards amounts to 400 or 500 roubles
a month. Then they must go to the free market for enough butter,
eggs, meat, or fish. A rabbit will sell for 300 roubles there. ‘ Two eggs
are about 25 roubles. So you see a salary of i,8oo roubles a month
doesn’t go far. But if you have an extra pair of stout, used boots,
it might bring 3,000 roubles and you could buy food with that.

“The chief metallurgist was a Party member. His wife could go to
a special store and buy perfume, American soap and canned goods,
butter and clothes. She even got one of those American Kodiak

x88

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

windbreakers with the removable lambskin linings they like so much
in Siberia. But this store was reserved for the top people in the
metallurgical section. They really ate bettex than we did.”

“ Most Americans have the idea that our stuff goes to poor, un-
fortunate Russians,” said Tex. ” What they don’t understand is that
under the Soviet system, everybody may be somewhat unfortunate
but no one is outstandingly poor unless the government wants them
to be that way — like their political prisoners. You’d hardly expect
them to pamper prisoners with American canned goods. So it goes
to the ones who arc doing the most important jobs — the army and
the Party members. Don’t you agree, Ed?”

“That’d be it,” said Ed.

“How did you cat?” I asked.

“Now and then,” said Ed.

“They gave us the best they had, except maybe for the top Party
members,” said Tex.

“Once they sent down 200 kilogrammes of frozen sturgeon — that’s
more than 400 pounds— for the two of us. Of course, it’s a great
delicacy in Russia but wc began to get pretty tired of it, and before
we could cat it all, it began to rot.”

“But then they sent the potatoes,” said Tex.

“I’ll never forget them,” said Ed. “While they lasted we had
potatoes three times a day, including breakfast. When they were
gone wc had only this fish and some goat meat until the middle
of May.”

“About that time, word came through that the big boss was
coming down on an inspection trip,” said Tex, “and the next day
they produced half a side of beef. The day he was supposed to
come, they even killed two chickens, but he was delayed so wc got
to cat the chickens.”

“In order to keep eating decently, we had to raise hell,” said Ed.
“For instance wc were tipped off by a Russian engineer that
our trust had got in a carload of tangerines for their commissariat.
Wc hollered to Intourist and they finally came through with a
crate. The same way when wc learned they had eight barrels of
concentrated lemon juice for their hospital — we managed to talk
them out of a couple of gallons. It’s good against scurvy.”

“You mustn’t ever back down in dealing with Russians,” said
Tex. “As a p)coplc they’re heartless. They’ve had to shift for them-
selves since childhood, and they don’t ever seem to have close
friends. I guess under their system, you can’t trust anyone. What-
ever makes it, you’ve got to tough and realistic in your dealings
with them. They’ve got no sympathy whatever. Remember that
red-headed girl?”

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

189

“She was in our organization,** said Ed. “She got sick and could
hardly drag around. We mentioned it to the boss, trying to get
him to lighten her work. He just looked blank. ‘ What docs it
matter?* he said. Couldn*t understand why it was anybody*s
business but hers.”

“Do the top Communists push the workers around?** I asked.

“No,” said Ed slowly, “they don*t.”

“I’d say it was just the other way,*’ said Tex.

“ When one of the top directors does get out of his fancy office
and onto the job — which isn’t often — he shakes hands with every-
body and calls them by their first names.”

“Another thing,” said Tex. “ In America a corporation will some-
times nurse a man along if he isn’t delivering, but it’s true here to a
greater extent. They’ll scold him, fine him, and try to get him to
do better, but they rarely fire him like we do in the States. Of
course, it’s no punishment to a man to be canned here — he just
goes to work somewhere else. You see, he can’t leave his job unless
he is fired.”

“It almost looks like the director was afraid to crack down for
fear he’d get in trouble with the people,” said Ed.

“The workers have that air of emancipation like our Negroes,”
said Tex. “They’ve been downtrodden for centuries and now they
can talk back to the boss. They’re not afraid of him. Now the
NKVD is something else.”

“Machinery^ is Greek to them. All they understand is hand-
labour,” said Ed. “They’ve been doing it for centuries.”

“All their labour is green,” said Tex, “and I don’t know why.
We can take hill-billies out of Kentucky and make machinists out
of them in Detroit but I guess their system lacks the incentive.
They’ll take a dull handaxe to prepare concrete forms, and they will
be full of wccpholcs big enough to throw a cat through. Then
they’ll let their reinforcing rods stick out where they’re doing no
good at all. It’s like building with sheep-herders,” concluded Tex
disgustedly. “And I can’t explain why.”

“Tell him what the girl said,” suggested Ed.

“Oh, yes,” said Tex. “Maybe she had it. She was a political
prisoner. But she was smart as hell — had a college degree in
engineering. They had her in charge of the inventory of mine
explosives, which is how we got to talk to her. She said — ”

“ Wasn’t she one of the ones that died ? ” asked Ed.

Tex paused a minute. “Believe she was,” he said. “The last
month we were there, 2,600 of the 70,000 workers on that job died of
typhus. Of course, it was mostly the prisoners. Believe she was one
of them. Anyway she said — **

igO REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

*‘Hcy, listen !’* said Ed. From outside came the roar of motors.

God, there it is,” said Tex. They both rose and picked up
their bags.

*‘Well, White,” said Ed, ‘‘looks like you’re going to have a nice
trip.”

‘‘But some day you ought to come over here and see Russia,”
said Tex.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “What did the prl say?”

“Her? Oh. Take too long. But she sure hit the nail on the head.
Some other time.” They went on out to the plane. I went back
to Joyce. I had finished my cigarette at Omsk airport.

Now for a note on this Russian suspicion of foreigners. Russia
does not yet trust the outside world. Diplomats arc just as closely
imprisoned in Moscow as are correspondents. At the time of our
visit the current British ambassador had been unable to secure per-
mission to travel outside the capital. One of the Allied countries
which has in power a left-wing government adorned its diplomatic
staff in Moscow with a special labour attach^, and appointed to this
post an important union official. He came to extend the hand of
fellowship from the toilers of the West to their fellow workers in
Russia. He complains now that the Soviets gave him countless
banquets but have let him sec nothing. This lack of freedom has so
warped his viewpoint that he now insists that the Soviet system
of unions is only a scheme to get the last ounce of work out of
labour.

By contrast the 1,500 members of the Soviet Purchasing Com-
mission in America arc free to get on any train at any time and go
to any part of our country. As trusted Allies they are welcome
to inspect our war industries. No American should object to this,
but Americans should understand that hitherto it has been a one-
sided arrangement. On our trip we were taken to any factory we
wished to visit and questions were freely answered, but foreigners
as a rule are treated as spies, and Soviet officials withheld from their
Allies even the location of their war industries back of the Urals,
while permission to visit them was unthinkable.

Although Russian suspicion has decreased since Teheran, it is
still strong. It has roots both in the Communist Party and in Russian
history.

In earliest Russian history the monk Nestor chronicles the fact
that the Russian merchants of the Dnieper trade route, haiassed
by Tartar nomads from Asia, sent word to the Northmen of Scan-
dinavia, “Our earth is broad and rich, but there is no order in it.
Come and rule us.” So came the Rurick dynasty of czars. Later

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS* I9I

Asia swept in, and Muscovy paid tribute to Genghis Khan. Under
Peter the Great Europe seemed to prevail. European craftsmen were
invited to build her capital. Czarina Cathciine imported Germans
into the Volga basin to teach the moujik to farm, and French had
become the language of the court and literate classes. Under Czar
Nicholas I foreign tutors were discouraged, Western ideas and
literature suppressed by rigid censorship. After the Revolution,
Lenin invited foreign concessionaires to help get Russian industry
back on its feet. Later they were thrown out. Stalin invited foreign
engineers to build the great factories and dam rivers, but later put
some on trial for espionage.

During the German invasion, when the government was leaving
Moscow for Kuibyshev and various departments were burning their
files, Pravda published an editorial suggesting that screens be put
on the chimneys, so that charred fragments of documents might
not escape to be pieced together by foreign embassies.

The basis of the mental disorder called paranoia is a deep, sub-
conscious hostility toward the outside world. In its second step,
the patient reverses it and comes to believe that not he but the world
is hostile, that he is surrounded by intrigues, poison plots and spy
rings against which he must defend himself.

Of course, Bolshevik hostility aroused bitter counter-hostility. A
cordon sanitaire was built around Russia. France supported Poland
in a war against the Bolsheviks in 1921, and Russia was for over a
decade excluded from the League and denied diplomatic recog-
nition. So their suspicion of foreigners came to have some basis in
fact.

This warped view of the world held by the Kremlin is slowly
yielding to reality. After Lenin’s death, Stalin won power and sup-
ported the thesis — gingerly at first — that socialism in one country
was possible and Russia could dare to devote her energies to building
up her own economic structure. World revolution, he explained,
was desirable, and he pledged himself to bend all efforts to bring
it about. But for the immediate future, it was not indispensable to
the Russian Bolsheviks.

In recent years there has been a further change. For publication
the Kremlin has announced that world revolution is neither neces-
sary nor desirable from the standpoint of the Soviet Union. And
the ablest foreign observers in Moscow agree that these protestations
are sincere. They point out that Russia has been terribly weakened
by war and nee^ desperately a few decades of peace. They say
she now realizes that Europe does not want to be “liberated”
from capitalist democracy, and that this could be accomplished only
by a further bloody struggle involving sacrifices which the Russians

192 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

are both unwilling and unable to make. Russia wants, they insist,
only a stable and friendly Europe.

These observers do not pretend that Russia has any enthusiasm
for either democracy or capitalism in Europe. She accepts them
only because for the next few decades they promise to give Europe
that peace and stability which Russia needs. However, if they do
not bring stability — if there are disorders and unrest which create
a power vacuum anywhere on the continent, the Russians are not
stupid, and they will move a Communist government in to fill this
vacuum. But if America and England act firmly, both diplomatically
and economically to preserve real democratic order in Europe, these
observers think Russia will be well satisfied to accept the decent
compromises which we should insist on.

I would qualify this with an angle of my own. Such an optimistic
picture of Europe’s immediate future is based on the assumption
that Russia will follow policies which are to her self-interest. Al-
though the Bolsheviks have a clearer view of world reality now
than they had in the ’twenties and ’thirties, they are still plagued
with suspicions and there is no guarantee that they will not stumble
into policies which might provoke another war which nobody
wants, least of all themselves.

ELEVEN

We fly eastward over a country of tundra, cold swamps, and
pine trees resembling the Hudson Bay region. It is dotted with
round lakes.

Our destination is Novosibirsk, Siberia’s capital, which lies in
the centre of this chill roof of the world, about midway between
Berlin and Tokyo.

The next two days, spent at Novosibirsk, were dominated by one
of the most vivid personalities I have ever met, but it was several
hours before wc began to be aware of him. Certainly he did not
stand out at the airport. The ^oup which greeted us there looked
like all the others except that perhaps it was less formal, and more
like a picked bunch of town boosters and community builders who
might gather at an airport in Kansas City, Denver, Salt Lake City,
Wichita, or Los Angeles to welcome a visiting celebrity and show off
their town.

Their faces were grave like the others who had been lined up

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 1 93

below. But the spirit somehow became freer. The feeling of this big,
sprawling boom-town was like that of the West where the robust
town-builders are proud of their city. West of the Urals, Bolshevik
civilization has taken over ancient towns and palaces and their new
structures rise on the ruins of things destroyed. But here in Siberia,
as in our West, they have chopped and blasted and dug their
cities out of a virgin continent. And they have something to be
proud of.

Novosibirsk has almost a million people, but we see little today
for we are whisked across the town and through 6 or 7 miles of
wooded countryside which looks like Minnesota to our quarters.
Tiny potato patches are along the highway shoulders and others are
back in forest clearings. Women bend over to clear them. Big hand-
some girls, often barefoot, walk erect down the road with scarves
around their hair and farm tools over their shoulders. Occasionally
the road passes through a cut in a little hill. Even on the cut’s steep
clay sides, potatoes are planted in close, even rows.

We are told that the patches have been assigned to workers in
the city. Some factories maintain busses which take the workers
out on weekends to hoe the patches. But most must trudge out
from town, as we see them doing now.

Presently we ride along the banks of a river as wide here as the
Ohio at its mouth, but as yellow as the Missouri. Wc are told that
it is the Ob, of which none of us have ever heard, and that it is
the fourth longest river in the world.

It drains this vast plain, comparable to the Mississippi valley, and
flows almost straight north to empty ihto the Arctic Ocean. We
marvel somewhat at this, but more at how little we know of this
huge country of Siberia, as vast as a continent and in many ways
so like America.

We come to the dacha — a Russian word meaning country residence
for someone who normally lives in the city. It gleams new and
white against the great trees which surround it and overlooks
the yellow waters of the Ob sliding greasily toward Arctic icebergs.
The house would be indistinguishable from the great estates of
the wealthy New York families which line the Hudson. It has an
equally large staff of servants. The rooms are as large, as clean
and as luxurious.

I have written much about Soviet sloppiness, and the fact that
Russians build pretentiously and then seldom repair anything. This
is probably an Asiatic characteristic rather than a Communist one.
But whatever the answer, we find that whenever the convenience
of a high Communist is involved, these people can be as clean and
tidy as the Dutch or the Swedes. So it is in this dacha.

194 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

A doctor, summoned for Joyce, pronounces him without fever —
sound in wind and limb, hale if not hearty. There is no schedule
this afternoon and we are to rest and amuse ourselves. Below the
dacha a private bathing pier extends out into the Ob. Down the hill
we see through the trees a well-kept tennis court, with flood lights
for night games. To the right is a volley-ball court. Eric immedi-
ately suggests to his hosts that after we have eaten (the usual banquet
is waiting) and slept, we have a volley-ball game — Russians versus
Americans.

At about four o’clock it starts, although the Russians slip in an
extra hour’s practice. I watch from the dacha balcony. Eric and
the correspondents are in one court. Opposite are Kirilov and the
Russians who met us at the airport.

Both sides play reasonably well, and as in all such games, there is
considerable shouting, as players call back and forth. But presently
I notice that on the Russian side only one man does any shouting;
the others play in grim Slavic silence. The Russian shoutcr is an
undersized man in his forties, with wide cheekbones and a shock
of curly hair — quick as a fox terrier — who keeps up a running lire
of command and encouragement to the Russian team.

He is strikingly un-Russian. Some odd combination of chromo-
somes has produced out here on the steppes a quick-minded, tough
little Irishman. He could be Jimmie Cagney — complete with wiry
hair and jutting jaw. He even talks out of the corner of his mouth.

Clearly he was used to giving orders and the other Russians
accustomed to taking them in silence; yet I wondered idly why
he had been selected captain of the team, for his size kept him
from being a good player and he guarded a relatively unimportant
position on this court.

Dimly I remembered him at the airport with the local dignitaries.
We had met the mayor, the chairman of the local Soviet, the leading
factory director. If this little Irish type had held an important title
I surely would have remembered it. When the game was over I
asked who he was.

His name was Michael Kalugin and although he turned out to
hold no office in citlier the local government or its industry, it was
easy to see how he had acquired the habit of command. He occupied
the unobtrusive position of Secretary of the Communist Party for
Siberia.

We remark how curious it is that so perfect a Tammany Irish
type as Mike Kalugin could be repeated out herein the middle of
Asia, running another party. Not only does Mike’s Russian slide
out of one corner of his mouth, but he looks at you hard and raises
one eyebrow sceptically when he talks.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS ig5

I want to send a telegram to America so I get a car to take me
to the post office, which gives me a closer look at Novosibirsk.
Most Asiatic towns, judged from their central district, look smaller
than they really are. This town of almost a million has a shopping
district about the size of Wichita’s with public buildings comparable
to those in Kansas City.

In the central square there is a beautiful new theatre, comparable
to Kansas City’s WPA-built auditorium, with some fine buildings
around it. It is used, I learn, for the ballet, but Moscow artists also
occasionally perform there. Near by, a somewhat smaller theatre is
devoted to operettas, and plays are given at a third — this being the
standard set-up in every large Soviet town.

We pass a markedly well-built and spacious apartment house
and I ask who lives there. They tell me it is reserved for the artists
and actors who perform in these theatres, and that doctors and
))rofcssional men occupy a similar one. In Kansas City it wouldn’t
be the best apartment house, but it certainly would be a decent
class B one.

In the post office I climb a flight of stairs to the telegraph desk.
Here we arc back to the usual Soviet shabbiness. The building is
pretentious but the linoleum is worn through. In the halls, tiles
are chipped and missing — not just a few but more than a square
yard at the doorsill.

On the way back we pass the railway station, from the outside
an impressive modern building, and on a sudden impulse I tell the
driver to stop. It is in size midway between the Union Stations at
Kansas City and Wichita. The architecture is dramatic — high
ceilings with sweeping vistas, but the materials look second-rate. The
Kansas City and Wichita stations will last centuries if they are not
pulled down for something better. This Novosibirsk station is
shopworn already, but the effect is beautiful.

The crowd is fascinating. One great hall is roped off for women
with babies and small children. There are no seats, but the children
play happily around their mothers who sit on the clean-swept
terraza floor. But there are the usual polished wood benches in the
spacious main waiting room — only this is reserved for wounded
soldiers who sprawl on every inch of the space, their crutches leaning
on the benches beside them or lying on the floor. The soldiers are
either sleeping or trying to. They look patient and weary beyond
words.

In an American station USO girls or Red Cross nurses would be
fussing over them, handing out magazines, pillows, or hot coffee.
There arc none here — which does not prove that they don’t exist in
Russia. At least the soldiers get the station’s only benches. There

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

196

must be between 500 and 1,000 of these weary men, most of them
with an arm or leg missing. So far as I know this is a normal hour
of a normal day in Novosibirsk station. I stand here, looking at this
quiet eddy in the great sewer of war, where the waste material
of an army, used, broken, and rejected, is being poured back onto
the vast Siberian earth.

Wandering back toward the main hall I am again struck by how
much this is like a new Union Station in any big city of our West.
They even have Indians — the same copper-yellow faces with high
cheekbones and straight, black Mongolian hair. These, of course,
are from Kazakstan down on the Chinese border. But I see no
racial difference between Uzbeks or Kazaks and our Osages or
Navajos, except that these Soviet Indians are not so well-dressed
as ours. Like ours, they were fighting nomad Mongolian tribes until
the Russians tamed them.

The station restaurant is closed, but the usual long, patient queue
of Russians is lined up waiting until the doors open.

Leaving the station, we go back to the car. There is a parking
area but it is much smaller than that of an American station. Yet
in Russia it is adequate, for here there is only one other car — a big,
black, carefully polished Zees with a uniformed chauffeur in the
front seat, and in the back, an extremely well-dressed middle-aged
woman. In Kansas City she would be the wife of a bank president,
waiting to pick up her husband after his trip to Chicago. Here she is
probably the wife of the factory director or some other important
Party member.

For one paragraph I must get ahead of my story. The next day
Mike and the other Novosibirsk boosters took Eric on an official
tour which included this station. They gave him a dramatic glance
down onto the waiting room from a high balcony. Mike was plainly
annoyed when Eric, at my suggestion, insisted on going down onto
the main floor to walk through that forest of Red Army crutches,
past the queue at the restaurant and through the women and
children squatting patiently on the floor.

Maybe a committee of American town boosters w ould be annoyed
if a visiting dignitary threw a tour off schedule by insisting on a
quick trip through a slum area. Any such group wants to show
off its best, without necessarily denying that unpleasant things exist,
but I think Mike found our interest in the seamy side dangerously
morbid. He saw me whispering to Eric and I felt he had a not
too friendly eye on me after that.

Bach at the dacha the minute I step out of the car it is clear
things are beginning to happen. A Red Army band is tuning its
instruments down by the water front. As it strikes up a military

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS ig7

march a second band appears, in even smarter uniforms, and begins
tuning up.

As we go in to dinner, a gleaming white river steamer ties up at
the wharf. We are told that after dinner we will go for a ride on
the Ob. At dinner there is a curious incident. When it comes time
for toasts, Eric pays tribute to their hospitality. Then Mike Kalugin
rises and, squinting his eyes down the table, tells us of the pleasure
it gives him to have us in Novosibirsk. Joyce, who has by now
recovered, then gets up for the American team and amplifies the
theme of Russian hospitality, saying that it overwhelms us. After
this the tall, thick-set, imposing Russian mayor of Novosibirsk
stands. Mike had been leaning over, whispering with Eric. When
the mayor rises, the table falls silent. The mayor, as is customary,
picks up his glass. Then he opens his mouth to speak. At this point
Mike glances up, sees the mayor, frowns and quickly jerlw his
thumb down. The mayor closes his mouth, drops back into his
chair as though he had been butted in the knees from behind by a
goat. Then he remembers to put his glass down, and silently picks
up his fork. It would seem that Mike does most of the talking for
the Russian team. Also that Party discipline out in the Novosibirsk
region couldn’t be better.

After the dinner Mike ushered us down the river bank and
aboard the steamer. The sun was shining brightly and would not
set until ten o’clock. On our way up to the deck, we passed the
dining salon. We had just got up from one meal in the dacha^ but
a table was laid with wine glasses for another.

Mike waved us expansively to a row of deck chairs just forward
of the bridge. The better oT the two bands, lined up on the bow
facing us, struck up as the boat moved out into the current. The
cold arctic sun was burning the tawny waters gold between the
green trees that lined each shore. No wonder the band was magnifi-
cent, for it was the official band of the Red Army — musicians
selected for their skill from all of Russia’s millions. Their uniforms
were spotless. Half of them played instruments and the other half
was a perfectly drilled male choir of perhaps thirty voices. The big
river rang with gorgeous Red Army marching songs and heart-
breaking old Russian folk tunes.

Whenever they stopped for breath, the other band, out of sight
on the stem of the boat, would play. The first band was really
made up of stage artists and musicians in uniform. The second one,
however, was a standard army band in well-worn uniforms, whose
marching tunes made up in volume what they lacked in precision.

*‘Did you ever see anything like this?” a correspondent whisperec
to me. ” What American millionaire could put us up in a summei

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

198

house like this, give us such food and entertain us on a big yacht
with not one band, but two? Ho you know anybody who could?”

A couple of Red Army boys now advanced to give a sword
dance, the rest of the band playing background accompaniment.
They danced wild, barbaric Cossack dances, sitting on their heels
and kicking high. Swords flashed out and steel clashed against steel
— ^arks flying as the two men leapt high in the air.

Eric leaned forward. “Now notice Mike,” he said. “A minute
ago when those two sword dancers were jumping around, they got
close to the rail. Immediately he motioned two over to stand by
that rail so they wouldn’t go overboard. He looks out after his
people. A real leader always does that in any country. And
he’s one.”

The choir, with woodwinds and brasses soft in the background,
was now singing a fine old army song of the yearning of a soldier
for his home village. It somehow had in it all the strength and
resigned sadness of the Slav peoples. The sun had just set, and the
river had turned from gold to dull yellow. The trees along the dis-
tant shores dropped from fresh green to black. The band now
played a waltz. Two pretty little waitresses who had been brought
along from the dacha to serve our supper were on deck listening,
and the Field Marshal, who had his eye on the brunette with the
blue eyes and snub nose, invited her to dance. At everybody’s
urging Eric danced with the other.

When it was over dusk had fallen, and Mike advanced with what

appeared to be a blunderbuss pistol.

“He says,” translated Kirilov, “that he will now fire salute.”
Mike pointed to the darkening sky, and pulled the trigger. There
was a soul-shaking bang, a shower of sparks, and a hissing rocket

leapt from the gun’s mouth and spiralled its way toward the zenith,

where it burst in a beautiful pale green star which slowly settled

toward the river and then winked out.

Mike was bending over to reload the gun from a large box of
shells on the deck. He handed it to Eric with a lordly gesture. As
this star bored into the sky, Eric’s wrist wobbled under the kick.
Mike now took it and sent a purple star skyward, reloaded and
handed it to Eric, who took it with a trapped look. There were
at least fifty shells in the box. For variety he pointed the gun
toward a small island out in mid-channcl and liis star luckily fell
among the weeds on its shore where we watched it biu*ning out.
Mike immediately took the gun and placed a second flaming star
on top of Eric’s. This was precision shooting in any army. It
occurred to me that Siberia would not be a healthy place for any
Party member who did not see eye to eye with Marshal Stalin.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS I99

When two dozen of the fifty shells had been fired, Eric called
for help.

“Joyce — Bill ! ” he called, with an effort at vivacity, “wouldn’t you
fellows like a turn here? Come on — do!” Joyce prudently bowed
out but I falteringly volunteered. The pistol kicked like a mule and
I knew Eric’s arm must be pulp. I handed it to the Field Marshal.

When the box was empty, Mike proudly ushered us down to the
dining salon and the boat turned around, heading for our dock.
Eric and Joyce sat down with Mike and the Russians at the big
table. I sat at a kind of children’s table which had been arranged
for the correspondents. There were the usual polite toasts between
Eric and Mike honouring Marshal Stalin and Gospodin Roosevelt.

When the boat returns us to the dacha^ we find half a dozen
women in evening gowns. We are introduced; they are artists from
the local opera. In the next room another staggering banquet is laid ;
they are to dine with us. Dinner is not easy for they are distributed
among us at table and they speak only Russian but do their best to
make polite small talk with gestures. Bob Magidov, who represents
the Associated Press, is particularly helpful. He lived in Russia until
he was fourteen but came to America with his parents then. His
Russian is perfect.

Eric has discovered he is a far better translator than the Intourist
girl and uses him constantly.

“But, Bob, don’t you get tired, translating all this after-dinner
guff back and forth?” a correspondent whispers.

“Not Eric’s,” says Magidov. “You guys’ve got no idea how good
his stuff is — how smooth it goes over in Russian. I tell you, it’s
marvellous.”

In the middle of dinner, one of the opera stars went to the grand
piano in the adjoining room and a blonde one of about forty rose
to sing the Russian version of a blues song — it could have been Helen
Morgan singing “Just My Bill.” Such a singer always selects from
her audience one man to whom she sings directly, and this Soviet
blonde selected the Field Marshal — probably because he was
nearest, possibly because of his American war correspondent’s
uniform, or maybe because he was bald and middle-aged.

With unusual zeal the Field Marshal entered into the game;
although the words were Russian their import was clear, and he
would respond to the song’s emotional climaxes by appropriate
gestures. We all enjoyed it and saw nothing unusual in the fact
that the Field Marshal, when at the end the accordion players
swung into a waltz, should ask her to dance.

We w^atched with measured envy. Although the singer was no
child, she was easily the youngest and prettiest of the artists, and

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had but one visible gold tooth. They danced down toward the end
of the room. Just beyond were French doors leading to a spacious
and well-lit porch, plainly visible from this room.

It was not remarkable that on a warm night they should open
the door to continue the dance out on the terrace. At this instant
the music stopped. This would not have been unusual except that
it broke off, not at the end of the tune, but in the middle of a bar.
Then we saw Mike. He had risen. With a quick gesture he silenced
the orchestra. He was staring at the blonde. %ie was already half-
way back to her scat. The Field Marshal proceeded to his more
deliberately, with some attempt to compose his dignity, and amid
dead silence. When he sat down the music started again.

“Anyway,” whispered Harrison Salisbury of the United Press,
“now we know which chick is Mike’s.”

“Except why should it be just one?” argued another corres-
pondent. “I’m letting them all alone. I’ve got dependants. A
situation like this is more risky than any front trip.”

But Mike was now making us a brief talk.

“He says,” said Bob Magidov, turning to Eric, “that there are
now two alternatives to the entertainment, and it is for these
honoured guests of the Soviet Union to choose. Outside on the tennis
court a motion picture machine is set up, ready to show the great
film “Volga-Volga.” Or, if we prefer, these stars from the Novosi-
birsk opera and ballet would be proud to give more vocal and
musical numbers.

We had once suffered through “Volga-Volga” and Eric handled
the situation with great tact, explaining that it is we who would
be honoured if these representatives of a great artistic nation would
favour us with its majestic songs. And after a decent interval, Eric
and Joyce excused themselves and went upstairs for some much-
needed sleep.

Meantime the Field Marshal was recovering his dignity.

“Just to show old Mike there’s no hard feelings. I’m going to
make him a Katushay^ he said. “Anyway, I was just being polite
to his girl. The cutest one here is that little brunette waitress.
Where are the bottles?”

A Katusha — named after the man-killing Soviet secret weapon —
was invented by the Moscow correspondents and consists of a large
water glass, filled half with vodka and half champagne. Few can
drink it and survive.

Tiptoeing over to Mike with the two brimming glasses, the Field
Marshal summoned the interpreter. Explaining why this drink was
so named, the Field Marshal offered him his choice of the glasses.

Mike appraised his quizzically, lifted his eyebrows as though

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

201

asking “why not,” clinked his glass and drained it as though it had
been milk. The Field Marshal, beaming, was starting back to his
scat when Mike raised a hand.

“Another,” he was insisting, this time mixing them himself.
These were downed. It was a triumph for the Field Marshal, but
again Mike plucked his sleeve.

“Yet another.” The Field Marshal’s smile had dwindled to a
sickly grin, but he was caught. Mike smacked his lips over the third,
but as the Field Marshal started away he put a firm hand on his
shoulder. Good friends, he told him, should not part so abruptly.
If he insisted on going back to his seat, he should have a final one
to cheer him on his way.

At this point the blonde with the single gold tooth tried to inter-
pose; Mike brushed her aside. The room was now in an awed
silence as they drank. Excluding the champagne, each had had the
equivalent of a pint of raw alcohol. Something must give; perhaps
not immediately but soon, as the liquor took hold.

The Field Marshal came back to his seat and told us now at last
we were seeing Russia — out here meeting swell guys like Mike
who really had power and authority, and what they said went,
instead of those little second-rate squirts you had to deal with in
Moscow, all afraid to make a decision. But a guy like good old
Mike, well, you were really talking to somebody who counted in
the country.

Then the Field Marshal rose for a toast. He told the Russians how
glad the correspondents were to see Russia — they were here at the
express invitation of Marshal Stalin — before this various underlings
hadn’t allowed them to come to Novosibirsk, but Marshal Stalin
had ruled otherwise, and since the correspondents were, it could
be said, almost the personal guests of Marshal Stalin on this trip,
since Marshal Stalin had wanted them to see Russia, he was raising
his glass to Marshal Stalin.

The Russians drank but seemed most uncomfortable, except for
Mike. He was relaxed in his chair with his eyes closed ; the blonde
with the single gold tooth was getting down him a glass of strong
hot tea.

There was another musical number and after it people got up
from the table. We looked around; the Field Marshal had dis-
appeared. We found him on the brightly lighted porch. On the.
bench beside him was the pretty brunette waitress with the snub
nose. He was holding her there by the wrist.

“She looks like she could take care of herself,” said Bill Lawrence
of the New York Times,

The Field Marshal knew about eight Russian words. These he was

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trying most earnestly to arrange into a sequence which would convey
his meaning.

“Maybe he’s asking her to join the Red Cross,” said Dick
Lauterbach.

The pretty waitress kept shaking her head.

“I guess she doesn’t like the Red Cross,” said Bill,

“Or she could already be a member,” said Dick.

“ Maybe we ought to break it up,” said Bill.

“She’s not in any trouble,” said Salisbury. “She’s handled
drunks before.”

And even as he said this she slipped away, and with a friendly
grin to us went in and began clearing off the table with her fnend
the blonde waitress.

The Field Marshal approached us unsteadily. He was annoyed.

“Listen,” he said. Then he paused. “If you want something in
this town, no use fooling around. Just one guy to ask. If he tells
’em, they do it. I’m going to ask Mike. What’s use having friend,
if you don’t use ’em ? If he tells her, the argument’s over.” He went
on through the door.

“ Maybe we’d better stop liim.”

“Mike’ll handle him.”

“Mike’s pretty tight.”

“Mike’s not that tight.”

Mike was tottering uncertainly but with great dignity under
the arch which led into the hall. The other Russians had gathered
around the piano and were singing. The two waitresses were clear-
ing the table.

The Field Marshal approached. He put an arm around Mike.
Mike nodded with grave contentment. With the other hand, the
Field Marshal pointed at the brunette waitress. Both waitresses were
watching this out of the corner of their eyes as they worked. Then
the Field Marshal tapped his own chest and pointed to the bedroom
floor above, looking gravely at Mike.

Mike considered, then slowly and emphatically, as one who has
come to an important decision, he nodded. He beckoned to the
brunette waitress. But before she could cross the room, the blonde
one appeared, bearing two water glasses she had hastily filled from
a vodka bottle. Automatically, each took one. Automatically, they
drank. Then the Field Marshal lurched through the archway and
up the stairs toward the bedrooms.

Again Mike beckoned the brunette waitress. He stood for a
minute talking to her just past the arch. We could not see her face
or whether she was still shaking her head. Then Mike beckoned
again, this time toward the front door, where the NKVD man was

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 2O3

Stationed. He gave him some kind of orders. Then he lurched off
down the corridor to his own room.

Now the NKVD man was talking sternly to the girl. This time
we could see her shaking her head firmly.

“ My God, arc they really going to do it?”

“I don’t like to watch this.”

“But remember, Mike was drunk. They were both drunk.”

“Where I come from you don’t get that drunk.”

“Listen, don’t get hysterical. It could happen any place. Have
you ever been to a clambake?”

“ No, and I don’t guess I like clams. I don’t want to even watch
it. Let’s step out for some fresh air.”

“But you haven’t watched anything yet.”

“ Let’s just stand here. To see if it’s really that kind of a country.”

The brunette waitress was still shaking her head when the NKVD
man gripped her by the upper arm. As they went upstairs he was
still holding her firmly.

“All right. Now you’ve seen it. I suppose at the clambakes they
grab them by the arm and lead them?”

“Lot depends on what kind of clams they’re having.”

“Well, I want some fresh air. I don’t like the smell of clams.”

Just below the lighted porch was the tennis court. On it was the
motion picture screen. Two operators were patiently waiting on a
near-by bench. It had been about eleven o’clock when Eric
decided he did not want to see “ Volga-Volga.” It was now almost
four. As we came to the edge of the porch, a switch snapped and
the screen lit up. They thought we were coming down.

“Hey,” shouted Dick in Russian. “It’s all right to go home !”

The figures only stirred.

“But who are you? They’re waiting for Mike to tell ’em they
can go. Unless he remembers, they’ll still be here next Wednesday.”

“No cinema tonight ! ” shouted Dick in Russian. “It’s all right to
go home. Everybody’s in bed now.”

This time the figures switched off the light and began packing
the gear.

“And I suppose that’s where we’d better go,” he added in
English.

We walked back across the porch. Just as we entered the dining
room, we saw the brunette waitress come down the stairs alone.
She had been gone less than a minute. She went into the dining
room. She was smiling. And she was completely unruffled. So was
her neat hair and her clean starched apron. She quickly whispered
something to her blonde friend, and they went brisldy about stacking
the dishes.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

204

“ Well, what do you know ! Is that how it is at the clambakes?”

“ If they really make up their minds, that*s how it always is, any
place.”

We went over to the waitresses, and said it had been a fine dinner.
They thanked us, and hoped we had been well served. We said we
had been very well served, and thanked them again.

Then the brunette, with a perky smile, said it was a pleasure to
serve us at the table. Anything we wanted. At the table.

Then we said she was an extremely nice girl, that in our own
country we didn’t know any nicer.

She thanked us again, and said she had a fine, two-year-old baby
and a husband in the Red Army.

We said we bet he was a brave soldier.

She said he was and also handsome.

We said we were sure of it, and went on upstairs. As we thought,
the Field Marshal was lying across the threshold of his room, out
cold.

“Td just as soon leave him there.”

“Don’t be romantic. Maybe some day you’ll get tight.”

“Or get as old and silly as he is, so you’ll have to fall back on your
political pull.”

So we undressed the Field Marshal, all but his shorts, and put
him to bed. But we didn’t hang up his uniform. Then we went to
bed.

The next morning we start out, none too bright and unreasonably
early, to visit Lenin Optical Plant No. 69, which now makes
range-finding equipment for artillery and tanks. Its director is
Alexai Kotliar, a sober Russian of thirty-six, who has been director
for four years, before that production chief and before that an
engineer. He was originally from Leningrad but was evacuated
with this factory, arriving here November 16, 1941. Sixty per cent
of its 15,000 workers came with the machinery; the others volun-
teered to remain and defend the city, so their places have been
filled from the local population.

The factory is clean, well-lit and apparently very well-run, for
no one is idle at the benches. Walking down the assembly line,
Kotliar explains the process to Eric, but Mike lags behind, talking
to the workers, a wave of the hand to this one, a pat on the back
for that — a ward-boss patrolling his precinct.

“Get a load of Mike !” says a correspondent. “Isn’t he wonder-
ful ? Strictly Tammany ! ”

“What’s he saying to them?”

“Ask Dick: he’s been back there listening.”

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 205

^‘That last little girl — the cute one that he patted on the head —
he called her by her first name, said he noticed on the board she’s
overfulfilled her norm, and why hadn’t she joined the Komsomols?
She said well, she didn’t quite know why, she was working pretty
hard and all those meetings took so much time. Then he said she
ought to think it over. That the Party needed smart girls to work
hard for Russia. She said she would.”

The director here is proud of his precision work. We ask him
if it is as accurate as the great Zeiss plant in Germany — admittedly
the best in the world before the war. He says it is now as good, but
only recently and there are two reasons. One is that they have
been bringing up the standard here. A second is that Zeiss standards
are deteriorating, to judge by the latest trophies captured.

Then they take us into the testing rooms where optical equipment
is subjected to cold — 50 degrees below zero— and then past benches
where the glass is precision-ground.

At this point a pretty Komsomol presents Eric with a bouquet of
flowers and a speech, to which he must reply in kind. During the
pause we get some information out of Mike. First we ask him
about restrictions on travelling; and he says here there are none.
Back in Moscow, Leningrad and in the war zone region, yes, of
course. But on this side of the Urals travel permits are not hard
to get.

Then we ask what happens if a married couple are working in
the same factory (most of them do) and the husband is mobilized,
sent to the front, and later discharged and assigned to another
factory. Must the wife remain where she is?

Only if she prefers it, Mike tells us. If she applies to work with
him in the new factory, it is usually granted. They don’t separate
families.

One of the correspondents is disgruntled. A famous Russian
fighter pilot is convalescing here in Novosibirsk with his wife and
family. The correspondent had asked and received from Zemenkov,
our Foreign Office chaperon, permission to interview him. It
would be wonderful to get into a Russian home for some real
atmosphere.

But now Zemenkov tells him this would be entirely too much
trouble, so that the pilot will be brought to the dacha for the
interview.

“And you know I think they really mean well, but that’s Russian
hospitality for you. Drop a hint you’d like to go fishing, and they
break a leg to bring you a bucket of whale meat.”

“Have you heard what happened to Magidov?” asks a cor-
respondent.

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“No— what?”

“Of course, you know how good Magidov’s Russian is — bom here
and all that. Well, it seems last night when Mike was tight he
backed Magidov into a corner and said, ‘ We know all about you.
In the last war you were a czarist officer and fought against us ; we’ve
been keeping track of you — you were a bad boy. But that was a long
time ago; we’re willing to forget and you can come on back.
You’d look pretty good in a Red Army uniform, and three stars on
your shoulders wouldn’t look bad, either, would they?”

“ Wha’d he say?”

“Said no, no, they had it all wrong; he’d left Russia when he was
a boy and certainly had never been a czarist officer. But Mike said,
oh, yes, he had ; they’d kept track of him. That if he didn’t want
to come back, that was his own business but he might never get
another chance. Said he’d fought in the Civil War himself and con-
sidered it a poor afternoon when he didn’t kill two of those bastard
czarist officers. Poor old Magidov, I don’t think he slept much.”

In the factory dining room each of us is presented with a fine
pair of 8 X 30 Red Army field glasses, with our names engraved in
Russian characters, and, of course, there is another banquet. Eric
handles the toasts smoothly and then we go back to our cars which
will take us to the dacha^ where we can catch an hour’s rest before
the next banquet there.

On the way to the cars, a correspondent overtakes me.

“Had a little run-in with Mike,” he says.

“What happened?”

“Guess I kind of blew up at him. You know, all these banquets
and everything. So I finally just told him: ‘You haven’t got Marx
and Lenin here at all !’ I said. ‘ You’ve got the damnedest inequality
I ever saw ! ’ Asked me what I meant. ‘ Why, look at all this food
you give us ! ’ I told him. ‘ We can’t eat half of it — it must be
thrown away ! And then all these starving people ! We have nothing
like that in America ! ’ I told him. ‘ We don’t have that inequality !
I’ve read Marx and Lenin and they certainly weren’t for that ! ’ ”

“Wha’d he say?”

“Said I was all wrong. That Lenin had never been for equality.
Said equality was only a dream they hoped to realize in the far
future. That now, people were paid on the basis of what they
produced. But I guess I got him pretty sore.”

Back to the dacha for a brief rest before the evening banquet.
A part of Novosibirsk hospitality to foreign guests is a cotnely
female barber who arrives in your room wearing a spotless white
surgical gown. You sit in a chair and she does the rest. Joyce has
the worlu first and then she goes into Eric’s room while Joyce lies

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 207

down for a nap. I read a magazine waiting my turn, while Joyce
dozes in the next bed.

By the time I had been shaved and was in my seat at the banquet
table, Mike Kalugin had risen for the first toast. He was talking
slowly and looking from face to face with narrowed eyes. Magidov
was translating.

“Mike says,” said Magidov, “that this will be our last dinner
together, that we have been good friends, that he has tried to show
us Novosibirsk and the hospitality of a Siberian, and he hopes we
have enjoyed ourselves.”

Mike continued with measured words, his eyes narrowed to slits.

“He says parting with friends is always sad, but on some occasions
it is less sad than on others. On such occasions guests who have
pretended to be friends of the Soviet Union after they have left
have become traitors — writing and saying bad things about the
Soviet Union. Parting with traitorous friends like this is not very
sad, he says.”

The room was in complete silence. But when Mike began again,
his eyes were not quite so narrow. There even seemed to be a grim
smile on his lips. Through the ferns, I could see Eric at the other
end of the table. His face was stern.

“ Mike says,” said Magidov, “that he is sure our friendship is not
like this, so our parting is truly sad, and he invites us to drink that
our friendship may forever endure.”

Then he rose to drink the toast, but after it Eric remained standing.
He filled his glass, and raised it, looking first at Mike and then at
the interpreter. His jaw was very firm.

“We have enjoyed your generous hospitality,” he said, looking
now at Mike, “and when I was invited to the Soviet Union, it was
agreed that I would be free to say and write exactly what I thought
when I got home. While there are many things that we admire
about the Soviet Union, I must be frank with you; there arc some
things I do not understand. When I get back to America I shall
feel perfectly free to say exactly what these are.

“For instance, I have never understood the policies of the Com-
munist Party in America, although it is not strong there, and has
fewer members today than it had twenty years ago. But the Soviet
Union should understand that if the American people feel Russia
is interfering with our local affairs through this Communist Party,
then co-operation between America and the Soviet Union will be
impossible.

“As you know,” he said, “in Moscow I saw many of your im-
portant people, and only four days ago I saw Marshal Stalin. I
talked with them and with him as frankly as I am talking to you

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now. And, therefore, I also want to raise my glass to a toast for the
continuation of Russian-American friendship.”

We drank. Mike rose rather slowly to his feet. For a minute he
stared at the tablecloth. Then he looked sharply across at Eric and
began to speak.

“He says,” translated Magidov, “that from the days of the Civil
War, when he fought with the Red Guards, he has always followed
the discipline of the Communist Party, as he follows Marshal Stalin
today. He says the Marshal now tells us that we should not interfere
in the affairs of other nations. That we should get along with
foreigners. That’s all he wants to know: it will be done. Sp he
raises his glass to the health of his great leader, Marshal Stalin.”

That finishes the toasts. The artists of the opera are here to enter-
tain us tonight at last, and a plump one rises to sing. Mike dances
with her while the next is singing, and this reduces to jealousy the
slender blonde with the single gold tooth who had, the previous
night, restored him with hot tea. But when he sits down between
them, talking impartially with both, tranquillity is restored, at least
on the surface.

We are tired, departure for Alma-Ata tomorrow is early, so
very soon the Americans excuse themselves.

But there is at least an hour’s champagne left on the table, so we
hear the piano until almost midnight.

Breakfast next morning was in the same room, and as wc sat down
the mayor of Novosibirsk, apparently having first obtained Mike’s
permission, rose for a toast.

The mayor said they had found Americans to be good and warm
friends; he could assure us that Russians were also warm friends.
But if a friendship is broken, Russians can be terrible in their
anger. Russia’s friendship with Germany had been so broken, and
to her great sorrow Germany now knew the weight of Russian
anger. Then the mayor wished to Mr. Johnston and to those with
him a pleasant journey on through the Soviet Union, and that they
would get safely home.

We finished the caviar, Russia’s breakfast substitute for scrambled
eggs. We nibbled at the French pastry, trying to pretend it was
buttered toast. We drank the glasses of tea, longing for just one cup
of coffee. Then we rose. The correspondents were bringing down
their bags.

Then the ten servants of the dacha^ including the two pretty
maids and the cook, lined up alongside the dining table and in true
baronial style, each was given a glass of vodka to drink our health.
Outside five cars were waiting to take us to the airport. We had
seen Novosibirsk.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 209

And now, while wc are on the plane, headed south out of Siberia
and down into the country of the Tartars and the Mongols, whose
nomadic emperors Tamerlane and Genghis Khan once ruled all
Asia and threatened Europe, let us consider this Communist Party
whose rule here is no less absolute.

In 1917, when it seized power after the collapse of the Romanov
dynasty, the Bolshevik Party was a handful of Marxist theoreticians.
Russians only fleetingly enjoyed freedom and the Party then
assumed the autocracy of the Autocrat of all Russias. The heritage
of this Party is in almost equal parts of Marx and of Genghis Khan.

The small hereditary ruling class from whom the Bolsheviks
seized power did little to justify their privileges. Lenin was able to
outwit the gabbling lawyers of the Duma because Russia was not
ready for the liberal democracy they hoped to establish. The greatest
indictment which can be brought against Stalin is that, because
of his iron rule which suppresses freedom of opinion, Russia is still
less ready today, in spite of his paper constitutions.

In America, a Republican can be anyone — white, black, rich,
poor, drunk, or sober, who has decided he likes the party’s principles
or candidates. But becoming a member of the Communist Party
is as difficult as joining a yacht club. The usual first step is to join
the Komsomols or Young Communist League, which works under
the direction of full-fledged Party members. After some time in
this, the aspirant may apply for Party membership. For a year he is
watched carefully. Everything about him is investigated — from his
work habits and political opinions to his sex life.

The Party wants only intense workers who will subject them-
selves completely to a discipline as rigid as that of any army. It
also tries (with less success) to exclude those who may not have
strong convictions about its principles, but sec it as a necessary
step on the ladder to success. It does not want “careerists” although
in Russia membership is indispensable to a career.

Once the coveted membership is gained, the man is less closely
watched, but any slackening in zeal, any deviation from the Party’s
political line, or any signs of “personal ambition” arc punished
with expulsion. These admissions and expulsions are controlled by
the Party’s secretary, and in the early days this was put in the
charge of an unobtrusive Bolshevik named Joseph Stalin. Only after
Lenin’s death did the more prominent Communists like Zinoviev,
Kaminev, Bukharin, and Trotsky come to realize that the man who
controls the Party’s membership controls not only the Party but
all Russia.

The high Party members, who now wield the power of the
Romanovs, have moved into both the palaces and the privileges of

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the old aristocracy, and are drinking quite as much champagne.
But no one can argue that they do not justify their existence by
hard and useful work for the state, and by taking leadership and
responsibility.

Class distinctions arc rapidly springing up in Russia. But, for the
present at least, these distinctions are based on achievement and
hard work — even though the achievement may sometimes be only
political skill necessary to climb to the top of the hierarchy.

“He’s got everything a Commissar should have,” the corres-
pondents once said, “a motor car, a peroxide wife with gold teeth,
and a dacha.'* But at least, he got these things by hard work, presum-
ably (and usually) in the service of the people and the state. The
privileged class in Russia is full of the rich sap of hard work. There
is in it so far none of the rotten dead-wood of hereditary fortunes,
piled up by useful men with vision but handed down through
generations of weaklings who yet retain the privileges.

The Communist Party had about 5,000,000 members until Stalin’s
purges beginning in 1936 reduced it to about 2,500,000. After the
war began the base was broadened and membership raised to
4,500,000, many from the army. But since responsibility for leader-
ship goes with Party membership and Communists are supposed
to (and do) set an example of personal courage, an unduly large
number of them have been killed and nobody now knows the exact
membership.

One of the Party’s functions is to provide the Kremlin with
accurate reports on the state of Russian public opinion for of course
this exists even as it has under both Mussolini and Hitler. In the
field of foreign aflCairs, of course, the people have no facts other
than those provided by the government-controlled press. But in
domestic matters the Russian people have definite ideas as to what
they like and do not like. The Party is sometimes unable to check
a trend in public opinion. If it is a real ground-swell they do not
fight it, but divert it into proper channels.

They remember 1917, when they themselves rode into power on
the crest of a tidal wave of unrest which the old autocracy failed
to recognize in time, and was too stupid to handle. They expect
similar unrest after this war, and are sure they will be quick enough
to canalize it before it gets out of hand.

American correspondents in Russia who are most warmly sym-
pathetic with the dictatorship say that it amounts to a government by
the Gallup Poll, which is much too rosy a view of die facts. The
dictatorship is, of course, acutely concerned with public opinion.
But most of this is created by the government’s own press; another
portion may be directed into safe channels — and there remain a few

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

211

instances wheic the government finds it must abandon, reverse, or
postpone policies because they are too unpopular.

Only in foreign affairs docs the dictatorship have a completely
free hand. Since no Russians may travel abroad except on officiail
government business, the people know nothing of the outside world
except what they learn from their controlled press, which is of
course only what their government wants them to know. Lacking
any independent basis for judgment, they must accept wars, allies,
and peace treaties as these are handed out from the Kremlin.

Some observers in Moscow think even this will change. They say
that the top Bolsheviks realize what they have lost by not permitting
their people to travel abroad, for Russia has always sorely needed
foreign help. But always they say — even if it grants tliis concession-
the Party will control.

On one side of the picture this is a slave empire. On the other
side it is a vigorous, dynamic empire — moving on.

“Hey,” said the Field Marshal, “the Intourist interpreter is
certainly off of me.”

“ What happened ? ”

“Oh, some crack I made. Probably shouldn’t have.”

“ Wha’d you say to her?”

“Oh, just that she was pretty lucky, having this soft job with
Intourist which lets her have all those nice clothes and all this food
with us, while the other girls go around, some of them, without any

“Wha’d she say?”

“ Flared right up. Said those clothes went with her job. And that
for ten years she’d worked as a hotel chambermaid, swabbing out
cans and cleaning bathroom floors, and she guessed she’d earned
the right to nice things. So I couldn’t argue.”

TWELVE

We are flying south out of Siberia, down into the ancient Oriental
peoples now ruled by the Soviet Union. For the first few hours the
country is still Siberia — lakes, chill swamps, marsh grass, and
forests. Slowly the lakes disappear and presently the forests dwindle.
We watch the checkerboard patterns of the collective farms.

Suddenly we are crossing a huge blue lake. It is so big that when

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REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

land drops away behind us we still cannot see the shore ahead.
When it does appear, we see the beginning of a rolling desert. On
our left a chain of blue, snow-capped mountains rises like a fence.
Geologically, they seem about as old as our Rockies. On the east
side of this fence is China.

The desert below is not scorched sand like Africa or Arabia, but
its thin yellow grass obviously can support little human life, although
we sec an occasional collective farm huddled along a water course.

We have entered Kazakstan, of which Alma-Ata is the capital. A
word on the Kazak people. Eric, who knows the Orient, says they
look exactly like the Chinese of Manchuria. I have never been
there, but I can’t tell them from our Southwest Indians.

They are part of the savage nomadic tribes who for a thousand
years have pressed against Europe and once formed a part of the
armies of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane and Attila’s Huns.

When Europe invented the rifle, they sank from the status of a
terrible menace to that of a constantly harassing threat.

In the past few centuries the Russian people have been pouring
through the Urals to colonize Siberia as our settlers crossed the
Alleghenies to civilize the West. Like them, the Russians had to
struggle with these savage Mongolian nomads, whose culture was
only a little higher than that of our American Indians. They can
duplicate our wars with the Iroquois, the Sioux, and the Blackfeet.
They have battled the equivalent of Geronimo and Sitting Bull and
they have their Custers who made valiant Last Stands, but who
finally, after a scries of border wars, opened the continent to the
White Man. We penned our Indians up in reservations. The
Russians found another solution as we shall sec.

We come in close to the mountain range, losing altitude for our
landing. We step out onto Alma-Ata airport at the base of the foot-
hills into a countiy exactly like that around Boulder, Colorado, or
Colorado Springs. The trees, the scenery, even the weeds are the
same: I can hardly believe I am on the other side of the earth, and
that across these snow-capped Rockies lies not Utah but China.

Again as in Colorado the June sun beats down hot through the
thin air, and it is so dry that in the shade it is almost chilly. The
group which greets us at the airport is about two-thirds Russian
and one-third Mongolian Kazak.

“What the hell arc those?” demands the Field Marshal sus-
piciously.

Kazaks, he is told.

“Hm. Kazaks. For my money they’re Comanches.” He rubs
his scalp nervously. “ Many of those fellows around here? They’re
all right, aren’t they?”

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 2I3

Both the prominent Russians and the prominent Kazaks wear
immaculate white raw silk suits. We shake hands and climb into
cars for the drive into Alma-Ata, which, like Denver, is on an
irrigated plain with mountains rising in the background. We pass
through cornfields, where sunflowers grow along the irrigation
ditches — again exactly like Colorado. The farm houses arc of sun-
baked brick, made of clay and straw — the adobe of our Southwest.

This Soviet Denver is a sprawling Russian town, which before
the war had 180,000 people and now has 400,000. Take away Den-
ver’s automobiles, its new residential district, its business section
blinking with neon, fill it up with shabby, hard-working Russians
and equally shabby Kazaks, and you have Alma-Ata.

We are taken to a clean, modern hotel, where our party occupies
one entire floor. We have the afternoon free, except that Eric who
is very tired mentions a sun bath, and around here his slightest
whim is not only law, but apparently a part of the Constitution
of the Kazakstan Soviet Socialist Republic. They bring out Zeescs
and we are driven for half an hour up a mountain canyon following
a stream, which boils down over boulders. The water is yellow
so the creek must be up and I say they must have had rains on up
the canyon. Eric guesses it comes from glaciers melting in the hot
June sun, and he proves to be right. Along the road where the
canyon is broad enough, we pass a few farm houses and patches
of cultivated land and Kazaks wave as we pass. Finally, wc get out
and climb 50 yards above the road to a big rock which is the site
for the sun bath. On up the canyon the blue snow-caps rise; back
down it we can see the heavy haze of the plains.

My feeling about sun baths is that when I need vitamin C it is
simpler to eat a slice of lemon than to let ants crawl over me. But
Eric is entitled to hold a contrary view.

That evening after the customary banquet we go to the local
opera, where they give a performance based on an old Kazak folk
tale. The actors are all Kazaks as are the words, music, and cos-
tumes. It is a beautiful show, and gives us a vivid idea of what these
people once were like. The costumes are clearly derived from the
Chinese and a musician picks out a haunting Oriental tune on
what looks like a Chinese banjo while a pair of twin Kazak boys
sing.

All of their culture came over the mountains with them but today
it is preserved only here in the opera, for the clothing of those we
see in the streets is not picturesque, but is a drab composite of
clean patches indistinguishable from the rest of the Soviet Union.

Next morning they take us for a drive out through the irrigated
river valley, past pink adobe houses indistinguishable from those of

214 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

New Mexico (lacking only the strings of red peppers) to a great
Soviet experimental station — one of four in the Kazakstan Republic.
Kazakstan, by the way, is four-fifths the size of all Europe exclusive
of Russia, but it is largely arid like our American dust-bowl.

We meet the Russian director of the station, Andrei Pruss, who
shows us around. This is a fruit farm, where under irrigation they
are raising apricots, peaches, cherries, and plums. They arc keenly
interested in the performance of a plum which they recently brought
here from Canada, and which is already producing more than
twenty-five pounds of fruit per tree. In this particular orchard
they arc using the most modem system of subterranean irrigation.
Pipes arc laid under the ground. But they are proudest of their
vineyards; in 1914 they had 3,000 hectares of land in grapes. Now
they have 30,000.

Workers on this state farm get only 300 roubles a month in salary,
but at the end of the season they get a produce dividend of about
700 kilogrammes (roughly 1,500 pounds) ofvegctables, which includes
com, melons, and pumpkins. Then each has his own irrigated
garden plot — about a quarter of an acre for each worker. If they
wish to sell the produce dividend on the free market, they get such
prices as 50 roubles per kilo for raspberries, 5 roubles per kilo for
sugar beets, 3 for watermelon, and 12 for apples. These are low
compared to the Moscow free market prices — as they should be, here
in the heart of the fruit country.

We ask the director about himself. He gets 1,700 roubles a month
and pays monthly 35 roubles for two large rooms in a big house
which he shares with someone else. The rent, he says, is figured on
the basis of i rouble, 30 kopeks, per square metre of dwelling space.
In American figures, this is about 10 cents a square yard.

The farm, the people, and their methods look good. Russians are
born with green thumbs.

Now they take us back for a tour of the movie studios, which
at the beginning of the war were moved out here from Moscow.
Overnight Alma-Ata has become the Hollywood of the Soviet
Union. But best of all wc meet the great Soviet director, Sergei
Eisenstein. He has worked in Hollywood and knows the leaders
of the motion picture art all over the world.

Eisenstein is, as his name indicates, of German-Jewish origin.
He is a short, fast-thinking, friendly little man, whose curly gray
hair is not quite so bushy as Einstein’s. He and his staff wear coloured
polo shirts with short sleeves in the Hollywood manner, and Eisen-
stcin wears a well-cut white linen suit.

He begins to tell us of his present great work filming the life of
Ivan the Terrible, of which we have already heard much in Moscow.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 215

Ivan is one of the newly resurrected Soviet heroes. Eisenstein
speaks fluent English, with a slight but agreeable accent.

“All the things that had previously been done on Ivan the
Terrible,” he says, “were in the wrong line.” They were about his
personal character and underlined the cruelty of his later years.
Now, however, Eisenstein explains, the “line” on Ivan the Terrible
has been changed. (He seems to accept this philosophically, as every
Soviet artist must.) “This time,” he says, “we are bringing out the
fact that in his earlier years he was a great builder of Russia — quite a
normal czar, in other words.”

Ivan’s life will occupy three full-length motion pictures. The
first part was finished in October, 1943. The second was scheduled
to be done by January of 1945, and the final part would be com-
pleted by the following October, 1945. Of course, we are anxious
to see shots from the picture, but only the day before the film was
shipped to Moscow, and all Eisenstein can do is to take us through
one of his sets. It is a replica of a great medieval throne room —
in one end of which a table is set for a traditionally staggering
Russian banquet. Only this time we don’t have to eat. The wine
jugs and plates are papier-mach^ and the jewels which adorn them
are coloured glass.

They now announce wc must go to the provincial capital, where
we will meet the president of this Kazak Soviet Republic. It had
been scheduled for the following day because the president has a
cold with four degrees of fever. But on hearing Eric’s decision that we
must leave tomorrow morning, the president of Kazakstan has risen,
dressed, and gone to his office where we are now taken to meet him.

It is in the administrative capital building — an impressive, new
white edifice with simple decorations inside which are dominated, of
course, by the usual Soviet pictures. At the windows are immaculate,
pongee curtains, and the officials sitting around the table wear
white suits of the same silk.

The name of the President-Premier of Kazakstan is Nutras
Undasinov. He is a pleasant, kindly old Comanche or Sioux, who
except for his European clothes, might be the dignified tribal chief
you would meet on any Indian reservation. Most of his cabinet
ministers are also Kazaks, but there are a few blue-eyed, blond
Russians present. The Russians, however, are in the background.

We ask the Kazaks about the early history of their country. They
tell us the people racially belong to the Turkoman- Mongol group,
and were fighting for independence as early as the twelfth century,
when the southeastern part of the present republic was under the
rule of the Chinese Seventh Dynasty. Later they adopted the
Mohammedan religion. The title of the hereditary ruler was the

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REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

Khan — as in Kublai Khan and Genghis Khan. The Mohammedan
religion is still popular — many people go to the mosque.

But Kazalcstan is now one of the republics which make up the
Soviet Union, and has a great measure of independence; recently
it was given the right of a separate foreign minister, they tell us
proudly.

But Joyce is irritated by this line of questioning. He whispers to
me, “Never mind all that stuff — get it out of any encyclopedia.’*
Then turning to the premier, he says, “You say now this is an
independent republic; well, tell us about some of the conflicts
you’ve had with the central government.”

This is translated but the premier is baffled.

“Now in America, there arc lots of conflicts between the various
states and the central government. Tell us about some of the
conflicts you’ve had with Moscow.”

The premier says there haven’t been many conflicts, and lets it
rest at that.

“Well, now, you say you have the right to send ministers to
other countries; who will you send them to? Will you send one to
America?”

A big Russian down at the end of the table, who has hitherto
kept silent, now tactfully leans forward and suggests that such
ministers will be sent to those countries most useful to them com-
mercially.

Joyce turns back to the premier. “All right then, are you going
to send one to America or not?”

The premier doesn’t believe that has been decided yet.

“Well, who will decide it?”

Of course, that would be decided in Moscow, the premier ex-
plains. But Joyce is not satisfied with this triumph.

“Give me one instance of your past differences with the central
government; you must have had them.”

The premier goes into a long dissertation. For centuries, he
explains, his country was the gateway for invasion from the south,
and these destroyed and impoverished the people. At the time of
the 1917 Revolution the people were 93 per cent illiterate, and the
few who could read were either Russian priests or civil servants
of the Czarist government. Today illiteracy is gone, and the Soviets
have built many theatres and schools. Naturally, the people are
grateful, so why should there be any disputes with the Moscow
government? The Soviet Union is a united whole. Of course, there
are disagreements ; a few years ago there was one between Kazak-
stan and the neighboring Soviet Republic of Uzbekistan over the use
of water for irrigation from the river which divides them. Finally,

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 217

each republic appointed a committee and they ironed it out.
Kazakstan is rich in agriculture; Henry Wallace, when he stopped
here, took back some seeds to try out in America.

But Joyce will not be put off. “Now, I want to understand your
political system here,’* he says to the interpreter. “Ask the premier
how he got his job.”

The premier explains that the people elect delegates to a regional
Soviet, who send delegates to the Kazakstan Soviet, who chose him
as premier.

“All right,” says the Field Marshal, “now ask him how Stalin got
his job; we want to understand it. Ask him that.”

There is an awkward pause, and then the handsome Russian down
at the end of the table leans forward and explains smoothly and
briefly the intricacies of the Soviet electoral system. He did it
politely and there was no feeling that he was brushing the premier
aside; only helping him over the hard places.

In 1926 I visited the Osage reservation in Oklahoma. Oil had
been struck on their land and the tribe was rich. We had an inter-
view with the chief in his ceremonial feathers. He was a fine old
Indian, but when our questions got too hard, there, as here, they
were politely answered by the reservation agent, a bright young
man sent out by the Coolidge Administration.

Likewise when wc ask how many refugees are here, it is the
alert and friendly Russian who tells us that a million arc still here,
although many have already gone back to the reoccupied territory.

If this alert and handsome Russian occupied any official position
in the cabinet of Kazakstan, we missed it. Possibly he was only the
local secretary of the Communist Party.

They now present Eric with a complete Kazak costume which
consists of a gold-embroidered robe more gorgeous than anything
1 have seen this side of a Shriner’s convention. But its crowning
glory is a hood of red velvet, with ear flaps the size of soup plates,
and the whole, including the car flaps, is lined with silver fox fur.

Eric is both grateful and taken aback, and having donned the
robe, is about to put on the hood when Joyce suddenly clutches
his arm, with a wild gleam in his eye.

“Watch out, man ! Don’t do that !” he whispers hoarsely.

“But why not, Joyce?” asks Eric, holding up the silver fox and
velvet.

Joyce leans closer and grins. “Bedbugs !” he whispers. However
his fears are groundless.

I don’t know why the party they gave us at the hotel that night
was the most pleasant we attended in the Soviet Union. Perhaps

2i8 report on the RUSSIANS

because it was the most informal. The dinner was elaborate as
usual, but for some reason, it wasn’t stiff. The local notables were
at hand, but they were easy, friendly notables.

There was, for instance, the local Foreign Office representative,
who attended in full uniform. We were surprised to find one so far
out in the back country, but he explained that Alma-Ata is on the
fi-onticr — the main Soviet Port of Entry from China — so he has to be
here. But he was obviously homesick for Moscow, which was his
home — lonely and hungry for any tidings of the great capital.

There is an attractive girl — she teaches dancing at the local
academy and has been included for the obvious reason that she
speaks good English. It is fairly fluent but curiously awkward. She
explains she has learned it all from books and until now has never
spoken with an American or an Englishman.

There are vice-premiers, councillors, and members of the local
government, some Russian and some Kazak. There are also half a
dozen stars from the local opera — all Kazaks. There are twin boys
in their teens, who sang last night, now resplendent in twin Tuxedos,
of which they are very proud. There is a Kazak girl of about
twenty, who danced the role of the Oriental princess with the cruel
father. She could be any of the pretty Indian girls who, when
Indians had oil money, were sought after by sororities at the
University of Kansas.

Then there are two older artists — women in their forties, who,
except that they look like sisters-in-law of Madame Chiang Kaishek,
could be any of the Russian artists who have entertained us in the
other towns. Their evening dresses are just as good, they have as
many gold teeth, but in addition they wear beautiful Oriental
jewelry set with precious stones — old Kazak workmanship worthy
of a museum.

I wish I could write that they sang and performed well ; alas,
they did not. At best they were only fairly good, verging on down
into the frankly terrible. But they had worked hard, and it was
clear that they sang and danced better than any other Kazaks,
and were proud that the Russians had chosen them to represent
their people in the arts.

Most of all, we liked them as people. They were gentle and
fnendly, and obviously had never been warned against foreigners.
Almost the same thing could be said of the Russians. That invisible
barrier of tension and suspicion which separates Russians from all
foreigners had been slowly dissolving since we left Moscow. Here
in Kazakstan, it disappeared entirely.

In proof of this I submit the fact that for the first time since
wc arrived in the Soviet Union, no toast was offered to Stalin. Of

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 219

course, it was not deliberate. But we were having such a pleasant,
easy time that everybody forgot these compulsory formalities.
Likewise no one remembered to drink to Crospodin Roosevelt.
Possibly, the day after we left, these oversights were noted and several
people may have been shot in atonement. If so, I am sorry, but at
least we had our golden moment.

First the little Indian princess sang. She was only fair but a nice
child, so we applauded. Then the twins sang. They were worse, but
so anxious to please, we gave them a big hand. Then they wanted
to hear some American songs.

Eric, who did a stretch in the Marine corps, led us with, “From
the Hails of Montezuma to the Shores of Tripoli.” Then we insisted
the Russians sing one of theirs, so they obliged with “Volga Boat-
man,” singing it magnificently, letting it die away at the end, as
Russians always do and no American singer ever does.

When they wanted another from us, Joyce obliged with “Three
Blind Mice” which delighted them, and they came back with an
ancient Russian rondel, which translates as follows:

There was once a priest
And he had a dog.

, He loved her.

But she ate a piece of meat
So he killed her.*

He gave her Christian burial.

And on her tombstone he wrote :

There was once a priest.

And he had a dog.

He loved her.

But she ate a piece of meat —

And so on, far into the night.

We came back with, “My Name is Yon Yonsen, I come from
Wisconsin, I work in the lumber yard there.” And after that Eric
led us in “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.”

The Russian girl who taught dancing told me it was very nice
to find that we Americans had so many songs about working, that
it made them realize we too were a nation which delighted in hard
work, even as they did, even if we were capitalists.

Then it was my turn, and since my repertoire was completely
exhausted, the only genuinely American song I could think of was
“Pepsi-Cola Hits thp Spot !” which they applauded as loudly as the
others, although they said such a wine was unknown in Kazakstan,
and inquired from what grape it was made.

* In czarist tunes it was believed that a dog if fed meat would become savage.

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One of the Russians got up for a little toast to the Kazak artists.
He said he hoped we had enjoyed them and told us that the Kazak
artists were taking their place in the great artistic world of the
Soviet Union; that Kazak artists had gone to the front to entertain
Red Army soldiers, so we toasted Kazak artists.

Relaxed and at home for the first time in weeks, I was enjoying
these friendly, hard-working people, and thinking how little they
were allowed to know of the war outside Russia. My toast was long,
certainly sentimental and probably in bad taste. I paraphrase it
here only because of the curious effect it had on the Russians and
Kazaks.

I started by saying I was both surprised and pleased to learn that
Soviet artists entertained at the front and regretted I had known
so little about all they were doing in the war.

Since I had not known this, I thought perhaps there were many
things American artists were doing which they did not know. For
our artists were taken by plane thousands of miles out into desolate
Pacific Islands, or across the great Atlantic into camps in Italy and
France, to sing to them the old tunes of our homeland.

I told of the English artists during the 1940 blitz, when both
Russia and America were neutral. And of how the little island that
had stood alone against Hitler was saved by a handful of boys in
her air force. (At this point in the translation, Nick, the NKVD
man from Moscow, frowned a little and shifted uncomfortably in
his chair, but no one paid much attention to him.) How terrible
their losses were only the boys themselves knew at the time.

But in those months when they were going up to almost certain
death, their artists had come out from London to give them the
best that the English people had.

I explained that we had in the American army a morale problem,
which did not exist in the Soviet Union. For Russia was invaded
and every Red Army soldier knew he was fighting for his own
home soil.

But no invader had set foot on American soil, and yet we were
sending our boys thousands of miles away to oppose the fascist
aggressors in a war which many had thought we need not enter.
Small wonder, that sometimes these lonely, homesick men asked
themselves why they were being sent to die capturing islands and
cities whose names they had never heard. And all the more need to
give them our best to cheer their loneliness, to prove that their own
people had not forgotten. Then I offered my toast to the artists of
all Allied nations.

We drank. There was a silence, but not an uncomfortable one.
Then a Russian got up and said they had been most interested to

itEPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

221

leam what English and American artists were doing. And he would
now tell me more of what Soviet artists were doing — not to boast
but only because I myself had said I was sorry I had known so little.
Soviet artists, he said, followed the Red Army into battle. They
went up to the front in tanks. They sang in trenches and in dug-
outs. Many had been killed, but they gladly died to bring cheer
to the men.

I thanked him for telling me, and we toasted the bravery of
Soviet artists.

There was another thoughtful silence, and then a very nice and
spontaneous thing happened. One of the Russians started to sing
''Lubeme Gorod"' and they all joined in. It is a sad, magnificent
war song, but there is no class hate in it. It is only the song of a
little sailor of the Red Fleet who in the morning is going into
battle. He sings of his home village for which he will die, and the
good people in it, and the good Russian earth. We Americans, of
course, did not know the Russian words, but we could join in singing
“la — la — la” for we had heard it several times before but never
as it was sung tonight. We could sing — beating the table, some of
us with tears in our eyes — for the homesick boys of all countries. For
the moment nobody cared whether Nick, the NKVD man, might
think Russians were getting too friendly with foreigners, or whether
Eric Johnston, on his return, would recommend that American
business grant long-term credits to the Kremlin, or any of the
troubles that normally occupied us. We were singing for the home-
sick boys of all countries, and hoping that the fighting would soon
be over, and that they would come safe home.

After this we get up, one by one, from the table, talking in
groups. One of the Russians at the dinner is a plump young man
who represents the Soviet news agency, Tass, in Alma-Ata, and
who speaks a little German. The two young Kazak artists bring
him up to me to translate for them into German, which I understand.

Very earnestly they ask me if I enjoyed the singing and, lying a
little, I say I certainly did; particularly theirs.

Then they shyly ask me if I find them cultivated.

I answer yes, and then lying a little more, say that this does not
surprise me. Tor even before I came I had heard fine things about
the Kazak people. Then I ask them if they find me cultivated.

This question surprises them greatly. They say but, naturally,
I am cultivated, for after all I am an American.

Then I say this does not follow, for there are many who say
Americans are not cultivated. This they do not believe, but
they are now less worried about the problem of how cultivated
they are.

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At this point, the plump Tass correspondent beckons them aside
and talks for half a minute, while they nod their heads in agreement.

Then they come back to say that if I write of this trip when I
return, they hope I will not forget the young Kazak artists, or the
Kazak people tor whom Stalin and the Revolution have done so
much. Because before it, the Kazaks were a poor and fearful
people, hiding in the high hills.

But the government coaxed them down into the valley, and there
built dams for them and gave them irrigated land, and showed
them how to plant orchards, and how to build for themselves many
schools and this beautiful theatre I have seen. And they have taught
the young Kazaks to sing and play their own songs and stories in
their own speech. So today the Kazaks are no longer a people
huddled in the hills, frightened of others and ashamed of themselves,
but a nation proud of itself. And if I write of the great Soviet
Union, will I please not forget the small Kazak Nation?

The Tass correspondent then plucks the Tuxedo sleeve of the
twin who is talking, and whispers something in Russian, and the
twin adds that all these things they owe to their great leader, Stalin,
and will I also write this?

So I assure both twins that I will remember to write all these
things.

Then the piano in the next room starts, and a pretty little Kazak
girl in Spanish costume begins an Andalusian dance with a young
Kazak partner in bell-bottomed velvet trousers. But the music is
far away, the girl falters, makes a misstep, bursts into tears and,
covering her face with her hands, runs off the floor ashamed at
having disgraced her people before these mighty foreigners. We
all try to comfort her, and someone suggests the piano be brought
into this room. But this can’t be done, because the Comrades whose
duty it is to move pianos have gone to bed.

Whereupon the correspondents pick up the piano and bring it
into the room so the girl may finish her dance. This causes much
wonder, that such dignified and well-dressed foreigners should so
casually pick up a piano, and someone suggests that it is an example
of that Amerikansla technique of which they hear so much.

Then the Kazak girl asks me if we still build skyscrapers in
America, and I say not since the war. Then she wants to know if
they were ever really useful or were they not built only as exhibitions
of diis great Amerikanski technique.

I start to tell her that, unlike Russia, nothing is ever built to
exhibit technique, but only in the hope that it can be sold or used
to the profit of the builder. But ^s would only confuse and
perhaps offend her. So instead, I urge that she now finish her dance.

HEPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 223

which* she does this time without a misstep. And because it is now
late, we say good-by to the Kazaks and go to bed.

The thing I liked best of all about the Soviet Union, and it is one
we would do well to copy, is the intelligently decent Russian
attitude toward minority races. They are helped without being
patronized, and they have developed self-respect and an under-
standable gratitude. If they have no real freedom, neither do the
Russians.

While this Soviet racial-colonial policy may not be so good as our
handling of the Philippine Islands, it is infinitely better than our
bungling and thoughtless treatment of the Negro.

THIRTEEN

All morning we fly south again, paralleling the Tien Shan Moun-
tains. It is like following the Rockies down their eastern slope,
Cheyenne past Loveland and Boulder and Denver and Colorado
Springs, in the direction of Raton pass toward Santa Fe.

On our left is the towering wall of the Tien Shans, separating
us from China, India, and Afghanistan. They rise to more than
20,000 feet — much higher than the Rockies and geologically they are
newer — their crags are steeper and there has been less time for
erosion, although they are not so new as the Alps.

On our right is dry rolling country, with collective farms on the
plateaus and along the water-courses of the winding streams. In
America such country would be dotted with great herds of red
Hereford cattle — like the semi-arid grazing lands of Colorado, New
Mexico, and the Texas Panhandle. I sec none here. We are now
approaching a mountain pass and struggle for altitude. It is rela-
tively as high as Raton, which separates Colorado from New
Mexico.

Beyond the pass, rolling, grayish black hills stretch away to the
horizon — as dry and barren as the mountains of the moon. Here and
there a little river rises from nowhere, struggles through a valley
just far enough to nourish a collective farm, and then loses itself
in the sand. We fly over many lakes — greenish white with crusted
salt — or gray-white patches which arc dry salt marshes or old lake
beds. We have now left Kazakstan and enter the neighbouring
Socialist Soviet Republic of Uzbekistan, whose capital is the ancient
Mohammedan city of Tashkent. Ahead we sight the broad blue

224 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

coils of a great river winding through yellow desert sands, its banks
green with the irrigated plots of collective farms.

Today I am riding in the caboose plane with the corresp)ondAits.
The bucket seats are rugged, but the buffet service is as good as in
the plane ahead. It even includes fresh strawberries, taken on at
Alma-Ata. Dick Lauterbach pays a visit to the toilet and returns
shaking his head.

“PIl never get used to them. Five thousand feet above a howling
desert they serve us strawberries, caviar and champagne, and then I
go back there and find nobody has remembered to empty the
chemical bucket for three days.”

As we begin losing altitude for the Tashkent airport, we see
roads over the sand converging toward the city. On one is what
appears to be a line of marching spiders. Coming lower, we discover
it is a caravan of heavily laden camels.

The first thing we remark about Tashkent, while the plane’s
wheels feel for the runway, is its scorching heat. This desert is no
less blistering then Egypt, and the green strip of river bank does
nothing to break the heat. Next we see the crowd of airport-
greeters. As at Alma-Ata they are wearing white silk suits. Again
half arc Russian and half local Orientals. Since we arc now in the
Soviet Republic of Uzbekistan, the local boys are known as Uzbeks.
A sartorial note here; the jackets of all Russian white silk suits
button up to the collarbone and have high tumed-down collars
like the Chinese. With them they wear, not Panama hats, but caps
made of the same white pongee silk.

The cap, incidentally, is a relic of revolutionary days and was
symbolic of the working class, since only bourgeois exploiters wore
felt hats. Recently, the government has begun making felt hats,
explaining that, in the new Russia, they need no longer be regarded
as a badge of shanie. I notice, however, that all the oldtime Bol-
sheviks still cling to caps. Nesterov, who was a Party member when
he was sixteen, always wears one. Mike Kalugin wore one. And, of
course, Stalin, in all his pictures. As a hall-mark of the old Bolshevik
aristocracy, the cap is probably politically safer than the hat.

But now for the Uzbeks; racially they arc a mixture. They
resemble the near-by Afghans, and others might have Persian or
Arab blood. Occasionally we sec a Mongolian face which has
strayed down from Kazakstan.

We have hardly shaken hands when they hurry us into cars and
across the town to our first factory. Tashkent is an enormous
sprawling city of cracked and peeling stucco with wide, hot, dusty
streets not unlike Teheran, except for its empty, dingy Soviet shops.
But we arc by now so used to this we hardly notice. FinaUy, we

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 225

arrive in the clean, comfortable office of the director of the Stalin
Textile Trust of Tashkent.

What with the heat we arc frantically thirsty. They start to open
champagne but we stop them, pleading for water. So they bring
out bottles of that warmish, pink soda pop which Russians always
proffer their guests instead. Mercifully, there arc on the table half
a dozen fresh peaches. In half a minute the plate is empty and in
another half minute it contains six peach stones. Ordinarily, I don’t
care for peaches, but nothing ever tasted so delicious. Only now
do I realize how starved we have been for fresh fruits and vegetables.

We get acquainted with our new hosts. The plant director,
Nikita Ryzhov, is a thin-faced Russian production man, friendly
but serious. He tells us a few facts and figures. The plant was built
in 1934, and all of its equipment is Russian except for one division,
which has some American machinery.

Since we crossed the Ural mountains we have seen little American
machinery — indeed, few foreign machines of any kind.

There are now 14,000 workers in this textile plant, the director
continues, and 80 per cent are women. The raw material is cotton,
grown under irrigation in this valley as in that of the Nile. But they
also weave silk, which they import.

The war has shrunk this plant. In 1941 it had 16,500 but now
they have less work and most of it is for the army — shirts and
underwear.

They tell us the plant’s total production is, in terms of money,
half a billion roubles.

The director explains that, unlike England and America, they
don’t count their production in square yards or metres. They figure
in running metres, and on this basis, they turn out 260,000 metres
every day, the cloth being about 89 centimetres wide.

Profits since the war began are hard to estimate, he tells us. But
in the last peacetime year their net was 60,000,000 roubles.

Patterns? The director doesn’t know how many thousands they
have on file; he only knows they can fill any order they get. They
matter little now, since 90 per cent of their work is for the Red
Army.

Now for the workers. Their hours run from eight to ten daily
according to their age, and they average more than 1,000 roubles
per month, although some crack ones make as high as 4,500. In
addition each worker averages between five and six metres of cloth
per month as a premium. They can make this up into dresses and
underwear, trade it for food or sell it for whatever price th^ can
get, just as the farmer on the co-operative may dispose of his food
ffividend.

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REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

With US in the office is the mayor of Tashkent. He is a dark
little Uzbek, a friendly but rather timid Oriental. His name is
Sadik Khusaynov.

Before the war, he tells us, Tashkent had 700,000 people and
more than 50 per cent were Uzbeks. At the peak of the evacuations,
there were 900,000 but now it is back down to about 850,000. Of
course, many more were cleared through Tashkent, staying only a
short time.

Many machine-building industries were evacuated here with their
workers — mostly the light and medium but a few heavy machine
industries as well. They also have aircraft production here.

At this point a big, handsome, full-faced Russian with very blue
eyes — who reminds us of Wendell Willkie — moves up and sits down
by the mayor. More precisely, the big Russian tells us, they have
here a plant making Douglas planes. Also a light machine tool plant
which is converted to turn out arms and ammunition for the Red
Army.

The big Russian adds that they also have shoe factories and
garment industries here, plus a plant for making emery stones needed
by heavy industries.

The handsome young Russian is Rodion Glukhov, and he is vice-
premier of the Uzbekistan Socialist Soviet Republic. Now and then
he interrupts — always picking up for the mayor if he falters. He
isn’t obtrusive, he has put his arm on the mayor’s shoulder in a most
friendly way, yet somehow the little Oriental looks ineffectual.

It is Glukhov who tells us that Uzbekistan had a total of 2,000,000
evacuees. About 60 per cent of them settled in cities; 90 per cent
of these have now returned to their homes.

However, other evacuees came with their plants, and, of course,
these will stay permanently. Where had the plants come from?
From Moscow, the Ukraine, and the North Caucasus. And from
Leningrad they have many skilled workers and engineers. He tells
us wiffi a smile that, of course, Leningrad is anxious to have these
engineers back, but Uzbekistan is anxious to keep such valuable
men. It will be for Moscow to decide.

But, we ask, what about the people themselves ? Where do they
want to live? That seems to be a matter of little importance. The
workers would want to live wherever Moscow decides they arc
most useful.

He tells us that Uzbekistan before the war had 6,200,000 people,
so the addition of 2,000,000 refugees was a big task. But when we
ask him how he managed it, he politely refers us to the mayor.

The little Oriental explains that the first problem was to receive
and house them. They made a survey of dwelling space, and

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 227

squeezed in all they could. Then they built many new one-story
houses. In Tashkent alone tens of thousands of square metres of
new living space were built for evacuees.

Then there were the industries. They needed hundreds of thou-
sands of square metres of factory space. The big Russian breaks in
to tell us that all had to be improvised quickly, for before the war
they had had no plans for receiving refugee plants. And from here
on out it is the big Russian who answers our questions.

The evacuations b^an in July of 1941 after the bombing of
Moscow. The industries began arriving in October.

He tells us they had only two weeks’ notice before the first
trainloads arrived. And then it was only a month before they were
settled into their new factory and production had started.

There were many problems. For instance, a huge munitions plant
evacuated from Rostov-on-Don had left its foundry behind. Back
in Rostov it had taken two years to build. Here in Tashkent they
finished one in twenty-eight days. A great aviation plant was moved
from Moscow; within a month it was up to 80 per cent of its former
production.

The second big problem was food, but in this, Uzbekistan asked
no help from the Central government. Every factory got a grant
of land and all of its workers cultivated the soil after hours. The
Uzbekistan Republic furnished horses for the ploughing and arranged
for the arms factory to turn out a little agricultural machinery.
The Central government in Moscow sent in seeds.

The big Russian is vividly re-living the struggle for us. In 1942
crops were poor because of lack of experience. But in 1943 they
were better; this year they are exceUent. It has been a good year
for fruits and vegetables, and the factories expect to raise all their
own fruit. For instance, this particular textile plant will harvest,
on its farm, three times what it raised last year.

There was a second means of raising food — the individual victory
garden. Although each factory had its farm, workers would come
to the mayor aslung for individual plots, with the result that there
are now fifteen times as many plots as before the war.

The first wave of refugees and refugee plants came from July,
1941, to February, 1942. Then there was a lull, but military
reverses in the North Caucasus brought a second wave, from July
to December of 1942.

We now start through the plant, entering a huge, clean, well-
lighted building with endless rows of looms all turning out heavy
sheeting. At fiKt I assume this to be the entire plant, but it is only
one small section. Others are making different weaves and weights
for uniform linings or women’s dresses. The designs — similar to

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REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

those used for calico — arc etched on copper cylinders. The dress
fabric is considerably heavier and coarser than we use in America,
which is only sensible considering Russia’s colder climate and the
harder wear these dresses get.

They explain that the factory has only recently started making
print goods for civilian consumption. For three years Russian
women have been wearing their old clothes. And who will get
this limited new supply? The shops maintained by those factories
or farms which have over-fulfilled their norms. Again we see how
little money means in the Soviet Union. If you don’t work in such
a lucky factory, it is almost impossible to buy such a dress at any
price.

In still another section they arc weaving parachute silk for the
army. We sec only women workers and they wear ragged home-
made sandals. Many arc barefoot. They are practically all Russians
— with now and then an Uzbek.

Eight thousand people work in this mill, which has 250,000
spindles. Another 6,000 work in the electric plant, machine shop,
and motor factory which are necessary to keep the looms in repair.
They are proud of their product. When we ask what their highest
thread count is, they tell us 70 to the inch, which is good by American
standards. They say they are duplicating the output of the best
British mills.

I know nothing of cotton mills, but this one was clean, orderly,
bright and seemed well-managed, although one of the correspond-
ents who watched carefully insists that 25 per cent of the machinery
we passed was idle. But threads break in all mills.

We are driven several miles out to the dacha where we will stay.
It is as comfortable and spacious as the one at Novosibirsk. A
natural American question is to ask who owns this rural mansion.
Here we have learned to ask what it is used for. This particular
country place is a rest home and summer vacation place for members
of the Uzbekistan cabinet.

Now another character enters the scene — a plump, middle-aged
woman called Nona. She has large, warm blue eyes which she
swivels this way and that. She seems to have been called in as a
hostess. She is the kind of big, friendly, jolly girl who makes herself
useful on picnics.

Nona was probably assigned to us because she spoke excellent
English, which she had learned in a most curious way. Not too long
ago she had been “the mother,” as she explained it, to a number of
American pilots who had been forced down on Russian soil after
Aleutian bombing-raids. They were scrupulously interned by the
Soviet government which is neutral in the war with Japan. They

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 229

had been housed under guard in a dacha similar to this and Nona
was in charge. She was fond of them all, and they had brought
their troubles to her.

Nona was born in Leningrad, where she married an architect.
Not long after their marriage they had been sent to T ashkent where
seven years ago he died. She is proud of him and later points out a
co-operative apartment house which he designed. She has not
remarried and what her job is we never learned. She is by Soviet
standards remarkably well turned out, with plenty of afternoon and
evening gowns. Yet I have noticed that under all systems in all
countries, good-looking, hard-working, intelligent girls are invariably
well-dressed.

That evening Nona goes into town with us to the local opera
house (new, and well-done with Oriental decorations copied from
ancient Uzbek designs) for a concert. They give, especially for us,
one act of an opera based on an incident in Uzbek history. This is
followed by a couple of vocal numbers and then by a “jazz band’*
which is on tour from Georgia {U.S.S.R., not U.S.A.).

About half the crowd in this theatre is Russian and half Uzbek.
Watching the act from the Uzbek opera I begin to realize that the
most admirable thing about the whole Soviet Union is what we
might call its colonial policy — its relationships with the smaller and
sometimes backward races. This is partly accounted for by the fact
that Russians historically have few race prejudices.

Instead of Jim-Crowing the weaker peoples, the Russians lean
over backward to give them titles and offices which, if anything,
are rather beyond their capacities. At first, I jumped to the con-
clusion that the native office-holders were stooges, dressed up and
provided with fancy offices but with little real power. This is in the
right direction, but it is possible to jump too far. For we learn that
the premier of this republic is an Uzbek and a smart one — an old-
time Bolshevik with a steel-trap mind, highly respected in the party
councils. We are assured he is no stooge. He is apparently as power-
ful here in his own right as was Manuel Quezon in the Philippines.
He is now in Moscow conferring with the Kremlin, and the less
important matter of entertaining visiting firemen is relegated to his
handsome Russian vice-premier.

Returning to the dacha we have our nearest approach to a row
with our Russian hosts. Our route takes us near the ancient Oriental
cities of Bokhara and Samarkand, where Tamerlane is buried. These
names out of Arabian Nights have fascinated me since childhood ;
I have been curious to see the clash between Bolshevism and the
world of Kublai Khan. Can they really mix commissars and
camel-caravans?

230 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

Eric is as excited as I am. Like a litany Kirilov has been repeating,
“Well. Perhaps. We will sec. Maybe I call Moscow.”

But tonight he announces there is no airfield at Bokhara or
Samarkand big enough to accommodate a Douglas. We can go up
one day by train (it takes twelve hours), see Bokhara on the second
and return the evening of the third. But as Kirilov well knows,
Eric docs not have that much time. The Russians talk heatedly
among themselves about our request. Arc they hiding something
down there in the Arabian Nights country ?

Since I am so keen on ancient cities they offer a brief tour in the
Oriental quarter of Tashkent. We drive through the broad streets
of the new Russian town to the old city, which is a labyrinth of
winding alleys like those in the Arab Medinas in North Africa, the
old quarter of Jerusalem, the Cairo bazaar, or the cities of Afghani-
stan across the border. But just outside this old city are two beautiful
new white buildings, both ornamented with Uzbek designs — the
post office and a huge cinema. The Russians have put their two
most beautiful modern buildings in the native quarter instead of in
the centre of their own section of Tashkent.

I stop the car to take a picture of the cinema when still another
car — a dilapidated Zees — which has been behind us, pulls up at a
respectful distance and waits. There are five men in it — the local
NKVD. When we go on it follows.

When we stop to walk through the ancient city it also stops. At
first there seems nothing to see but adobe walls enclosing cobble-
stone streets — with here and there a carved doorway. There are no
windows in the walls ; Uzbeks don’t believe in them. There are only
a few of us — two American reporters, Nona, who is translating, and
the plump Tass correspondent who has been riding with us since
Alma-Ata.

Finally we engage a shabby old man in conversation who offers
to show us his house. We gladly accept. With an ancient, six-inch
iron key he unlocks a door under a pointed wooden arch, and we
step out of the drab alley into a gem of a garden with a fountain in
the centre. At one end of this patio is his home — two clean, white-
washed rooms, some low furniture. On the floor is a mellow
Oriental rug which he says was his grandfather’s, and a polished
brass samovar. He apologizes that his wife is not home to offer
us tea.

We admire his rug and garden, thank the courteous old Uzbek
and, after I take a final picture, are about to go when the Tass
correspondent who has been talking to the old man, beckons me
back.

The old man now tells me, as Nona interprets, that if I write any

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 2$ I

of this in America^ I should understand that he is an old man, who
has seen many years go by, and well he remembers the days when
the emirs ruled this land. And that in those days he was not a man.
But now he feels like a man, and is treated like a man, and for this
he has to thank the Revolution and Comrade Stalin. I thank him,
and I particularly thank the Tass correspondent, and then we go
out. But for all of the Tass man’s helpfulness, I think it may well
be true.

All Soviet streets are clean — even the crooked alleys of this
Oriental town which elsewhere in the east would reek of garbage.
But I must for the record tell Hal Denny’s story of the eager professor.

For years Hal was New York Times correspondent in Moscow,
and we first met in Helsinki during the Finnish war. Hal had just
come from Moscow, of which he was unutterably weary. One of
his afflictions there had been the numbers of eager tourists who
came every summer to spend the few weeks necessary to study the
marvels of the Soviet system and become authorities on this Land
of the Future.

One such gusher, a professor of municipal government in a mid-
western college, arrived to spend a month studying his specialty.
After two weeks in the library he showed up at Hal’s room, breaking
in on a party of homesick correspondents, and began to talk about
the marvels of the Soviet town-planning system. Because here at
last was perfection ! Here finally was order out of chaos, everything
anticipated, all problems solved !

Hal at this point always adds that all Russian plans are mar-
vellous, provided you study them in the Lenin Library and don’t
bump into the results.

All, all was marvellous, the eager professor insisted ; their methods
of police protection, taxation, utilities, elections, and administration !
Yet on the rather unimportant topic of sewage disposal there seemed
to be no literature. Soon he would find the proper book, but in the
meantime could Hal tell him what they did with their garbage?

The answer, instantly given by that roomful of correspondents,
rose in spontaneous chorus : “ They eat it ! ”

Perhaps this is why even the Oriental alleys are clean in this
hungry land where there are no dogs, cats or cockroaches, where
tin cans and carefully straightened nails are sold in the market place.

In passing let it also be on the record that we saw no beggars,
although I am told they sometimes hang around church doors. But
in a country where there is work for all but everybody is a litdc
hungry, and more than a little shabby, no one in his right mind
would give anything of value to a stranger, and most of them have
too much self-respect to ask.

232 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

From the Old City we hurry across town to the airplane factory,
still trailed by that battered Zees-load of NKVD plainclothes men.
Why? I am not irritated, only curious. In this busy country it takes
the time of five men and an automobile to spy on me while I take
pictures. No wonder they keep our party herded together; it would
take scores of cops and cars to tail each one if we scattered out
through the city.

Travel in the Soviet Union is expensive for the foreigner, but his
tour must be even more costly to the government, which must hire
spies to follow him.

We arrive at the airplane plant a little ahead of time and are
taken to the director’s room to wait for Eric. I am half choking
with thirst and my eyes light up as I see a bottle of water sitting
on the big table.

I reach for it — but too late. One of the Russians has whisked it
out of the room.

I would like a drink ? — it will be only a moment. The champagne
is ready for Mr. Johnston’s arrival. Perhaps I would like a glass
now?

“Thank you. I’d much rather have water.”

Water? But certainly and here it is. They produce a bottle of
the familiar syrupy sweet carbonated soda pop.

“No, thank you, not that. Just a glass of plain water from that
bottle which was on the table a minute ago.”

Oh, but that was left there by accident. It was old water, left
from yesterday.

“But I’d really prefer it.”

Well then, of course, they will put it on ice, and as soon as it is
properly chilled, I may have a glass.

I give up.

When Eric arrives, the forty-year-old director, Afanasy Yarunin,
tells us this plant, which builds Douglas airplanes, arrived here
from Moscow in November of 1941 with 7,000 of its workers, and
thirty-five days later was in production. Now they have 14,000
workers building a Russian modification of the DC-3 they
turn out six planes daily.

With us this model Douglas is seldom used for anything but trans-
port or cargo; for other needs we build special models. But the Red
Army has modified the Douglas so that it can be used as a com-
bination transport, paratroop ship, hospital plane, and night
bomber.

Because it sometimes goes into battle, a huge transparent gun
blister bulges from the top of its fuselage, creating a wind-drag
which must cut at least 50 miles per hour off its speed. They also

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 233

use wood in the floor-br;i<Ts, partitions, and doors. The director
insists it is as good or better than aluminium and easier to work.

Perhaps in Russia, where both aluminium and tools to work it
are scarce. But aluminiuni is stronger and wood, under machine-gun
fire, dissolves to flaming slivers.

Russia pays no royalties to Douglas, having paid a flat sum in
1939 which the director believT“S was $2,500,000. Before that, his
chief engineer, Boris Lisunov, worked in the Douglas Long Beach
plant for two years, so they needed no American help when they
set up production in Moscow. Only about 5 per cent of the
machinery is American; the test was made in the Soviet Union.

The plant is in good shape. We estimate that they are turning
out at least as many planes as a similar number of workers would
produce in America. Remember also that our man-power shortage
is not so great as theirs and our workers include no twelve-year-old
boys such as we see here. It is the best Soviet plant we have so far
seen.

Now w^e are taken out into the desert to visit the Stalin-Chirchik
Electro-Chemical Trust, which, when it is unscrambled, turns
out to be a Soviet Muscle Shoals. They have dammed the Chirchik
river, providing the 100,000 kilowatts of electric power necessary to
run a huge nitrogen-fixation plant, which makes 80 tons of ammonia
every twenty-four hours. Before the war it turned out 600,000 tons
of fertilizer per year.

This is an impressive plant, likewise orderly, clean, and apparently
efficiently run, but we see most of it through blinding tears, since
our eyes aren’t used to the escaping ammonia, confined here under
great pressure in gigantic tanks and boilers. They show us com-
pressors which bring the pressure up to 600 atmospheres, and miles
of stout tubing connecting the huge tanks. For a stunt, they bring
out a pail of liquid ammonia, infinitely colder than ice and boiling
merrily at room temperature.

All of this complicated equipment was made in the Soviet Union,
they tell us, although some of it w^as designed in America. And at
the noon banquet they have the usual outlay of wines, but we
remembered for days the deliciously cold beer and water, chilled
by the liquid ammonia.

Without a minute’s rest (because eating is the most gruelling
part of our work) we are packed into cars and after a half hour’s
drive unload at a “fruit factory,” an irrigated valley.

They walk us down an incredibly long arbour where grapes hang
so low they knock our hats off. At its end we arrive at a pavilion
where (Oh, Heaven ! Be merciful before these well-meaning people
kill us !) a long table is set for another banquet.

234 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

They tell US they arc experimenting with cotton. This sovhoz
(state farm) raises seed for all the kolhoz (collective farms) in the
region*

This particular experimental station was started by an ancient
Oriental with the jaw-breaking name of Rizamat Musamukhamedov
who is brought out to meet us. He is now sixty-three and started
working in the vineyards as a boy of thirteen. He is an Uzbek of
a peasant family, a thin, dreamy man with an Uzbek skull-cap (or
tuDCteyka) and a straggly beard out of Arabian Nights. His work is
known all over the Soviet Union. He has on his coat the ribbons of
many state decorations.

Most of the information we get from the Russian director, Abram
Maltezeb. The big struggle since the war, he tells us, has been for
sugar. Russia has been without it since the Germans moved into the
Ukraine. Four refineries were evacuated from there to Uzbekistan,
still others to Kazakstan. The four plants exiled to Uzbekistan are
training local workers; when they arc finished the Ukrainians will
go home and new plants will be built for them.

Since the Germans seized the sugar beet fields of the Ukraine,
Uzbekistan has planted 35,000 hectares in beets for sugar, with this
year another 1 5,000 hectares for seed for the liberated Ukraine.

Irrigation is responsible for the heavy yield of the seventy-five
kindji of grap>cs grown here. At this point the grizzled old Uzbek
scientist, who has given fifty years of his life to grapes, picks up
the theme.

Uzbekistan, he tells us, can grow every kind of grape in the
world. The average yield is 22 tons per hectare, with water supplied
three to five times a season so the yield is steady. But they have
produced as high as 40 tons and he hopes to live to see 50 tons per
hectare. Samarkand is an even richer grape country. And, as here,
the little hand-work done is on the grape collectives — most of it
being done by tractor. The possibilities here, he says, are un-
limited, because “we have the skill, we have the good land, and we
have the will to work.”

What we have seen of Soviet agriculture has been uniformly
good. Since I come from a farming state I could not be badly
fooled. True, they have shown us their best. But it is at least as
good as our best.

We are returned to the dacha in time to change our shirts for
the local opera. We’d like to beg off but this big, blue-eyed vice-
premier is a slave-driver. It is his duty to show us his booming new
province and the opera is an important part. We see something
called “Ulug-Beg” which was one of the titles of Tamerlane, and

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

235

its story is of his times. Between acts we are taken into the banquet
room (Yes, God help us, the usual table is laid) to meet the com-
poser, a slender young Russian intellectual who has arranged these
primitive Oriental tunes for a beautiful ballet. His wife, a handsome
but wom-looking girl, who has written tlie words — not in Russian,
mind you, but in Uzbek — is here to explain the plot to Eric.

Her English is fluent and beautiful. If she hadn’t told us she
learned it in America where she spent a few years as a child (un-
doubtedly during the Revolution) I would have guessed she had
learned it at Oxford.

We are fascinated by them both. The opera is a lovely thing.
Here are two young intellectuals, interested in the theatre, who in
any other country would gravitate to its metropolis. She tells us
casually that once they lived in Leningrad.

What brought them down here to the ends of the earth ?

“Do you like Tashkent?” I ask.

“Yes,” she answers, a little wearily, there is much material for her
husband’s work in the old native songs, and, of course, she is busy,
for she had to learn Uzbek in order to write the verses. When they
first came they had a lovely old house down in the native quarter,
with an ancient garden. Small, but lovely. Now they have been
moved into an apartment. They left Leningrad for Tashkent seven
years ago.

I count back. That would make it 1937, the year of the purges.
People were exiled for knowing foreigners. This girl, with her
beautiful English and her cosmopolitan manners, surely must have
known many.

“Why did you leave?”

“For various reasons,” she says.

“Were they political reasons?” I ask.

“No,” she says.

“And are you happy here?”

“We have our work. And in Russia one should go where one is
most useful. Here there are many themes — much to be done.”

At this point, the vice-premier and Kirilov come up to talk to
Eric. After a few minutes Eric breaks away and suggests to the girl
that they stroll in the foyer with the crowd. Kirilov and the big
vice-premier, ever attentive hosts, get him between them for the
stroll.

And this, almost the last vivid glimpse into the Soviet system, was
]>erhaps the most revealing. Personal happiness counts for Uttle.
Loyalty to the Party, to the leader, to the cause are all. You go
where you are sent. If you should find yourself in Tashkent, you
may then be most useful for the rest of your life down in the baking

236 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

heat, writing beautiful operas which only Uzbeks hear, in words
which only they understand, to do your small and quickly forgotten
part in giving self-respect to what was once a half-savage tribe.

At first I thought Kirilov and the big vice-premier didn’t want
us to know this. Thinking it over I realize that they probably would
not care, or see reason to apologize.

Now for a personal story; I had a secret motive for wanting to
go to the near-by city of Bokhara. In the early twenties a hard-
headed American businessman went to Russia under the New
Economic Policy and as a concessionaire did so well that the govern-
ment owed him a considerable sum in roubles. He made a deal
under which they paid him off in glittering finery from the attics
and storage closets of the murdered czar — some of it gaudy, be-
jewelled junk, but there were ancient Byzantine things of real
beauty. I saw them on sale in New York and one thing fascinated
me: a long robe of old burnt orange velvet lined with magenta and
heavy with gold and silver embroidery. Covering the shoulders was
a gleaming medallion of Oriental design.

It was on sale with an elaborate parchment certifying it as a
coronation present to Czar Nicholas II from his vassal the Emir of
Bokhara. The truth of this I then doubted but its beauty needed no
parchment. Impulsively, I bought it as an evening wrap for my
wife. Since which time it is known in our family as “The Czar’s
Robe” to be brought from its cedar bag only on state occasions.

I wanted now to go to Bokhara because some trace of the fine
old craftsmanship might remain in some knickknack I could buy.

After what Kirilov had said of the airfield there it looked as
though I would never see Bokhara, although it lies so close to
Tashkent that the old emir ruled both cities. When the curtain
went up on the second act of the opera “Ulug-Beg,” I got a great
surprise. A flourish of Oriental trumpets announced the entrance
of the Emir of Bokhara and suddenly there it was — a blaze of velvet
— the same embroidery — the Czar’s Robe ! I learned that the actors
had borrowed from the local Soviet museum for this performance,
the state robes and jewels of the old emir, who died only a few
years ago, an exile in Afghanistan just over the border. So, if Soviet
moths ever devour this robe of state, there remains one other, in
our cedar bag.

When the opera closes after this tightly scheduled day we are
weary beyond words and long for bed. We arc to leave early in
the morning. But the handsome vice-premier is firm. After we have
finished the banquet here at the opera, we must see the operetta
theatre where a special programme has been prepared for us.
Limply, we are dragged across town through the hot desert night.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 237

This open air theatre is packed to the balcony with a crowd
about nine-tenths Russian and one-tenth Uzbek. They arc singing
an aria from ‘‘ Maritza,” immensely popular in the Soviet Union. A
juggler follows, and then the grand finale: chorus girls prance out
in costumes made in our honour — ^red and white striped trunks, and
blue, star-spranglcd brassieres. Hopefully, they sing a Russian
translation of “There’ll be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight.”

Because our hosts look at us expectantly, we applaud feverishly.

Zimenkov leans forward. “Typical American dance, yes? You
like it?”

“Fine,” I say, slipping into his lingo. “Some day you come to
New York I show you typical Russian dance.” He ponders this and
then suddenly looks at me sharply.

And yet how hard they are working to please us !

We are now pitiably tired and wonder how the big Russian vice-
premier and his cohorts have the energy to escort us back to the
dacha. When the door opens, we understand. There, in a blaze of
light, is the final banquet — our farewell to the Soviet Union — the
caviar, the champagne, the roast pig. As he meets its cranberry-eyed
gaze, Joyce blanches in horror, turns, flees to his room.

“Now, Bill,” says Eric, “I just can’t do this. You make my
excuses- to these fellows. Tell ’em I don’t feel well. You and the
correspondents have a good time. I’ve got to go to bed.”

Puffy-eyed, we sit down. Because I can’t look at food any more,
I sit sidewise in my chair. But the Russians arc standing.

“Where is Mr. Johnston?”

“He’s gone to bed. He’s very tired.”

“To bed?” They don’t sit down, but talk among themselves.
They seem angry. Then one approaches me. *

“Could it not be explained that this is in his honour, and that
many imp)ortant people have come?”

I weaken. “I’ll see how he’s feeling.”

Wearily, Eric gets back into his shirt and tie.

There arc the usual toasts to Stalin and Roosevelt. Eric is pre-
sented with an Uzbek robe of gold cloth, Joyce gets one of silver,
while I get one of red silk. The other correspondents must settle
for Uzbek skull-caps.

I talk for a while with the little Uzbek mayor, next me at the
table. But the vice-premier is talking. It is his broad-shouldered
driving energy which has caught the factories hurled from European
Russia and planted them in the desert, which has put millions to
work damming rivers, building industries and carving out the
new Russia.

He is sure of himself, of the driving power of this Bolshevik

238 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

system and of the new world it is opening up down here among
ancient Oriental tribes. He is telling us that he Is glad he had this
chance to show the new Russia to Mr. Johnston and to the American
press.

*'But there is one thing which I ask of all correspondents/’ he
says, “and in particular of Mr. White.” Here he pauses and I sit up
in alarm. “It is, that he will present the material objectively, and
under no circumstances to give it to the press of Hcarst.”

I hope I have satisfied him. I should add that I liked him and his
province.

Then the fat little Tass correspondent came up. He was pretty
tight, and his German sketchier than usual. But he explained that I
should take no offence at what was just said, because none was
meant. “ IVir wissen das Sie waren in Finlandy^ he said, ^^aber das ist
ein kleine Sochi nur*' (here he snaps his fingers) — a little, little thing
and is now forgiven of me. Because it was long ago that I was in
Finland, and now they will trust me to be objective.

I thank him for this compliment and their trust, assuring him
that my passion for Finns is now buried under rivers of Soviet
champagne, so at last I can be objective.

Then 1 go to bed and to sleep.

FOURTEEN

Next morning I follow the custom of all correspondents leaving
Russia, which is to divide among my colleagues all my worldly
goods (unpurchasable in Russia) except the dothes on my back.
For days they have been looking covetously at my extra notebooks,
spare socks, shorts, pencils, paper clips, shirts, handkerchiefs, tooth
paste.

For here we leave them. Kirilov has announced that they may
go by train to Bokhara and Samarkand tomorrow, while we fly
on this morning to Ashkhabad, the last Russian town on the Persian
border. So at last we know that wc were almost as suspicious as
they. All our secret forebodings that perhaps they reserve these
two old Oriental towns for a special torture-ground for Poles or
the Baltic middle classes dissolve before their frankness. It was only
as they had said — the airfield was so bad that the big vice-premier
would not take responsibility for Eric’s safety.

The reporters and all the Tashkent Russians come down to the

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 239

airport to see us off. In the car I ride with Nona. As we drive down
a boulevard (Tashkent is very well paved) she tells us that near by
is the cottage of her mother and father, a retired engineer. They
live on his pension of i,ooo roubles a month, which in peacetime
is decent but now is too little. But fortunately they own their
house. Yes, you can now own a house in Russia and, if you like,
either rent or sell it at a profit. Of course, its land belongs to the
state. If they ever need it for a government store or apartment,
they pay you only the cost of the house. But now you can borrow
from the government without interest as much as 10,000 roubles,
which will build a fair house, Nona says, and you have ten years
to pay.

Eric has picked up the information that a doctor or dentist, who,
of course, works in a state hospital, may have a private practice
after hours, and charge what he likes — just as the peasants may sell
their share of the collective’s vegetables for any price, after the
government has bought what it needs at the fixed low price. How-
ever, the doctor must conduct his private practice not at the hospital
but in his own home, and must provide his own instruments.

Nona, swivelling her big eyes, tells me how much she liked the
American pilots.

I ask her about the composer and his beautiful wife whom we
met last night at the opera, but she does not know them.

‘‘They used to live in Leningrad,” I say.

“And so did I,” said Nona. “It is a beautiful town,”

“They were sent down here,” I say, casually but slowly, “seven
years ago.”

“So-o?” says Nona, even more slowly. Her bedroom eyes have
stopped swivelling.

“That,” I say, “would be the year 1937.”

She turns to look at me. Then she looks straight ahead. Nick,
the NKVD man who probably doesn’t speak any English, is in the
front seat. We can see the back of his thick cop’s neck. For quite
a while nothing is said.

Then Nona begins talking of the American pilots. Such charming
young boys ! And when they left, several had wanted her address,
so that they might write her after the war when they were in
America. But at that time she had not thought it wise. She swivels
her eyes on me.

“I see you know how things are with my country. You under-
stand.”

I nod.

“Only now,” she continues, smiling, “with everything so good —
fo very, very good, with America and my country — well, you

240 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

understand. Anyway, give me a pencil, so I write their names on
this piece of paper, and if you ever meet them after the war, you may
say to them that they may now write to Nona, if they still want to.*^

Just as we get in the plane I discover a forgotten can of pineapple
juice and a roll of toilet paper I had cached there. It seems a shame
to take them from this land of shortages, so I scramble back down
the ladder and present the toilet paper to the Field Marshal and the
pineapple juice, with a bow, to the little Uzbek mayor of Tashkent,
who, with the big Russian vice-premier, has come down to see us
off.

He was a friendly little fellow and very kind to us.

Taking off, we rise over the city, and set off southward, following
the river. Below we see trails and camel caravans plodding along.
While Eric, Joyce, and I may not visit Bokhara, Kirilov has arranged
that we shall glimpse it. Presently the Russian co-pilot comes back
with the news that we arc nearing the city and that the pilot will
turn so we may sec all.

It slides under us — first the Oriental city, a maze of tiny alleys
through yellow mud walls radiating from the central turquoise-
domed mosque. We sec the spacious royal palace which was once
occupied by the old emir in Oriental pomp and our burnt-orange
robe. Undoubtedly Commissars sit there now in white pongee suits.
At one edge of the old town the new Russian city begins — wide,
paved streets laid out in squares like any modern town. Taken
together the two might be an air photo of any North African city —
the old Arab quarter and the new French town.

Leaving Bokhara we also leave the grccu ribbon of irrigated river
valley and enter a howling wilderness of yellow sand, as dead as the
Sahara. Far out in this we spot an ancient lost city — its river dried,
its walls crumbled, the dome of its mosque caved in — deserted. But
there arc traces of camel trails to it, left after all these decades or
centuries.

Then more sun-scorched yellow sand — hours of it, until we see
ahead another wandering green ribbon and know that soon we will
sec Ashkhabad. They tell us this desert is Turkmenistan, a Soviet
republic about the size of California but 85 per cent desert. The
region wai once famous for its fine Oriental rugs which were called
Bokhara rugs only because the tribesmen sold them in Bokhara to
dealers who, under the czars, came from all over the world. But
the actual weavers were these Turkoman desert tribes. Specialists
in Paris and London could tell in which savage viUage each rug
was woven, by minor differences in design.

We had planned only to stop at Asl^abad for fuel, and push
on over the near-by border to Teheran. But our start was so late

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 24I

that the pilot may decide to stay overnight here. The air currents
in the mountain passes beyond Ashkhabad are tricky in the afternoon.

Kirilov, thank God, has promised us there is to be no schedule
in Ashkhabad, so if we must stay we may rest at the hotel after the
banquets, ammonia plants, and operettas of Tashkent.

As we land, two surprises greet us. First a blast of desert air,
oven-hot at 120 in the shade if there had been any. Second the
local committee of dignitaries. It is like all the others except it is
a trifle shabby, its white shantung suits faintly soiled and ravelled
at the cuff. In addition to looking solemn, this committee looks
wistful. It is mixed Russian and Turkoman.

We look balefully at Kirilov.

Kirilov looks at his shoes.

“Now, Kirilov, see here — ” begins Joyce, indignantly.

“ I know.” says Kirilov. Poor patient man, buffeted on both sides !

“But you promised us no schedule here !”

“Perhaps. We will sec. Maybe I call Moscow.”

“Call Moscow, hell. Now you tell these fellows we’re tired. Got
to get to bed all afternoon. Tell them what they did to us in
Tashkent — ”

But Kirilov is already talking with the wistful local committee.

“Now we go to hotel — to banquet,” says Kirilov, and before we
can interject he is off. We follow-— anything — even a banquet — to
get in the shade.

With the committee is a buxom Russian girl in her late twenties,
the Intourist interpreter assigned to us. Her English is excellent.

The hotel of thus frontier town is a dismal, ramshackle affair,
but they give us their best — ^three rooms up three long flights of
stairs. It is hot beyond words.

Joyce strips to his shorts and collapses on the bed. “I’ve seen
everything I want to see.” This time I am worried. We have
watched him through lesser crises. In the past his pulse might begin
to flutter, his speech to thicken, his temperature to fall and his
pupils to dilate. But until now his modesty has never left him.
Whenever, as constantly happens in Soviet hotels, chambermaids
enter without knocking, he has always been able to scramble wildly
under a blanket or at least roll off the far side of the bed onto the
floor. The maid at Ashkhabad is fetchingly pretty, a quality which
usually rouses in Joyce extraordinary feats of modesty. Now he
only closes his eyes.

All the Moscow Russians arc in complete misery. Kirilov in
particular, who is big and white-skinned, with a thin layer of
subcutaneous blubber which serves him well just under the Arctic
Circle. Now whenever he makes the slightest effort, he sweats like

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

242

a race horse. So with the buxom interpreter, a Moscow girl who
isn’t used to the climate although she has been here many months.
We wonder what she could have done to deserve Ashkhabad.

Meanwhile, I try to organize a bath before the banquet, and
manage to convey this idea by gestures to the chambermaid. She
beckons me to follow. They have one, all right, and as I had guessed,
it is in the basement. You first undress in your room and then,
putting on whatever takes your fancy as a bathrobe, descend the
three flights of stairs into the main lobby, on through the main
dining room and hence into the basement.

The shower was a single pipe of sun-heated water turned on by
pulling a chain. I pulled. A cupful splashed down between my
shoulders; then someone turned it off. I donned my raincoat-bath-
robe and went up to the main lobby to find out why. The guilty

P arties, it there developed, were the Municipal Soviet of Ashkhabad.

'here is a water shortage and it is turned on only two hours daily.
I went on up to dress. On this tour I discovered that the hotel
had three dining rooms, ranging from comfort down to squalor,
according to which category of rationing the guest was entitled.
Our banquet, however, was in none of these. Its long table was laid
in the corridor on the top floor which seemed to be a private ghetto
reserved for us.

Our party had now dwindled to Kirilov, Lucy the new inter-
preter, Nesterov, and, of course, Nick, the NKVD man. Joyce
stayed in bed. The wistful local committee sat down with us. There
were two Turkomans, of whom one, an alert, slender, black-eyed
young man, was the mayor, and about six Russians, several of
whom looked competent. The rest looked on their good behaviour.

Across the table from me is Nesterov, a spare little man, who,
as I have said, has been a Party member since boyhood, but who
markedly resembles the late Andrew Mellon. He wears the same
meticulously neat gray suits. But he has from time to time a merry
twinkle in his eye. He seems a mild, conservative little man and
although he doubtless had the blood of countless massacred czarist
nobles on wherever a Communist keeps his conscience, we had come
to like him very much. And this was our last day with our Russian
hosts.

So Eric and I began deciding what political opinions these
Russians would hold if they were set down in our American scheme
of things. We told Nesterov that he would undoubtedly be a
Republican, and he immediately wanted to know why.

^cause, I explained, he was cautious, prudent, and a man of
consequence in business matters. In America all such pillars of the
community were not only Republicans, but heavy contributors.

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 243

Nesterov blinked but finally decided to feel flattered. Down
toward the end of the table was a dumb-looking man with popping
eyes, a permanently open mouth, big Adam’s apple, and fls^ng
ears, who kept leaning forward to hear.

“And that gentleman there,” said Eric, designating him gravely,
“would be a member of the Farmer-Labour party.” It was so apt
that I exploded with a laugh.

Then the Russians took up the game. I forget just what high
commissariat they awarded to Eric. But Nesterov, appraising me
with a grin, said that in Russia I would be a Komsomol, which is to
say, a bright young man on the make, possibly in line for Party
membership but not yet worthy of it.

I thanked him for his carefully weighed compliment but said it
was undeserved; more probably they would have me out with
other political offenders, digging the Volga canal. So now, both
Kirilov and Nesterov laughed ; I thought a little too heartily. And
neither argued the point.

We are now hustled off to the rug factory and en route get a
better look at Ashkhabad. It has, like the others, an old Oriental
section, but the new Russian town is beautifully laid out and well
paved. In the centre is an irrigated park, an oasis of green in the
yellow desert dust which blows everywhere. And in the park, under
this broiling sun, is a veritable forest of Bolshevik statues, mostly
Stalin. He is always striding along in his long overcoat with his
ear flaps down, heavily gloved, just as he is under the Arctic Circle.
It seems cruel. We want to get a can-opener and rescue him.

In this sizzling desert heat one might think he could just as easily
and more appropriately sit quietly in shorts and a sun-helmet. But
only one statue has been officially approved, so he must stride and
sweat.

Since we have left Moscow, we have noticed that, when his name
is mentioned, less and less do the Russians leap feverishly to their
feet overturning furniture, although I am sure his popularity is as
great. Perhaps down here they are doing a good job and know that
Moscow knows it, so that even the spies and Party hacks whose
duty it is to keep enthusiasm whipped up have become bored with
all these surface demonstrations of loyalty.

The rug factory is most interesting. I have watched Navajo
women weave, but these Turkoman girls have greater skill and a
more delicate craftsmanship. They are decked out in beautiful
native costumes, wearing lovely hand-hammered gold and silver
jewelry, although I suspect strongly that it was borrowed for the
occasion from the local museum. In weaving they squat beside the
looms, using both their fingers and toes to hold the thread and tie

244 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

knots. As wc pass through they work feverishly but I happen to
return to one room and find them relaxed, gossiping and cackling
— probably at us, which is only sensible. We arc now taken to a
museum of their work. On the way over we are told that they turn
out about a square metre of rug a week, and that their base pay
for this is 350 roubles a month, although 1,500 is not uncommon
among the women who can turn out the most valued rugs, which
they will now show us.

The museum is filled with magnificent rugs in rich ancient
patterns and colours, and I wish I could spend an hour here, instead
of the allotted few minutes. But they lead us down to the end to
the choicest of all. There arc four rugs. Each has a narrow border
of ancient design, like the others. But it encloses a woven picture of
Marx, a picture of Engels, a picturo of Lenin and, largest of all,
a picture of Stalin.

The sad thing is that the Communist nouveau riche who, to demon-
strate their loyalty, pay staggering prices for this beautifully woven
junk, may convince the Turkoman craftsmen that Marx’s bushy
beard or Stalin’s shaggy eyebrows are things of more breath-taking
beauty than their ancient native patterns.

From the rug exhibit wc go to the town’s Museum of Culture,
formerly a Mohammedan mosque, built in 1903 under the czars
and the emirs. It is too fancy for our taste, but solidly built and
kept well painted by this regime. Wc ask if any mosque in Ash-
khabad remains open for worship, and are told that there is one,
over in the native quarter, but it is small, squalid, and would not
interest us.

This more stately mosque-museum is the town’s art gallery,
designed to elevate popular taste. On its main floor, under the great
dome, carefully preserved in glass showcases, are Dresden china
pieces of shepherds and shepherdesses. In another case are examples
of French Sivres dinner ware, and with this some Brittany peasant
plates from Quimper. In a third they have czarist Russian china,
made in the czar’s porcelain works at Petrograd.

All of it is decent. None of it is remarkably good. It is the kind
of solid, extremely conservative stuff which an American banker’s
wife in a town of 50,000 would have bought on her trip to Europe
^ but which her daughter-in-law would consign to the attic
at the time they put in the pink bathroom fixtures and the basement
rumpus room. I ask if these things came from the houses of the
nobility in the province; only a few, they answer. Most of them
were sent down from Moscow to raise the level of people’s culture
in Ashkhabad.

Free market prices seem to be lower than Moscow. Outside a

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

^45

woman is selling sweet soda on the street for only lo kopeks (about
I cent) while in Moscow it was 3 roubles (24 cents). The Intourist
girl tells us that if you go out to a near-by co-operative to buy
grapes, they are only 2 roubles (16 cents) a kilo, whereas in Moscow
they were about 100 roubles. However, if you buy them in the
Ashkhabad bazaar they must cost you 12 roubles. In general,
transportation is the big price hurdle in the Soviet Union. Before
they can approach our food standard, they must double Or treble
their rail system and build roads for trucks.

The day closes with a 12-milc trip through the blistering desert
to the “horse factory.” Having by now the knack for translating
Kirilov’s idiom into English, we had already guessed it would be a
stud farm. These desert nomads, like the Arabs and the men of our
own Southwest, have always been proud of their mounts. They
are shrewd traders and breeders of horse-flesh. They say production
goes entirely lo officers in the Red Cavalry.

They are beautiful horses — well stabled, fed, and trained. As we
wait in the enclosure, a couple of grinning fifteen-year-old jockeys
emerge to give us a fine exhibition of fancy riding.

That night there is, as ever, the local opera. The Turkoman
performance differs greatly in costumes, somewhat in music but not
at all in plot. It is still the cruel khan’s beautiful daughter who
wants to marry the poor boy, and in the last act love finds a way.
Because there is almost no rain in Ashkhabad, the theatre has no
roof, so we watch all this under the stars in a beautiful new building.

In the stifling heat of my hotel room, the good-natured chamber-
maid suggests by gestures that I would sleep better if we pulled my
cot onto the balcony. The sun rises early. I look down on a court-
yard of squalid tenements, windows open, and Russians sleeping
everywhere, sometimes under shelter but often stretched out on
the ground. The yard itself is filled with blonde, blue-eyed, flat-
nosed Slav babies — two-, three-, four-, and five-year-olds toddling
around, some wearing shirts and some not, beginning their early
morning play before the sun is too hot.

And I marvel at this teeming, fertile, hard-working, long-
suffering, indestructible race, which now spawns down here in this
irrigated valley as it does under the Arctic Circle.

Properly we think of Russia’s empire as a relatively empty place.
There is still elbow room for this generation — but what of the next ?
When the collective farms are so full of people that they can no
longer feed themselves or the factories — ^what then ?

The problem is not one for our times, since today Russia, like
England and America, is one of the “have” nations, with a com-
fortable share of the world’s earth and raw materials.

246 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

Today these well-fed, blonde Slav babies play in the desert sun,
revelling like all babies, in the dust of the courtyard,just under the
mountains which divide the Soviet Union from Persia.

So now at the airport we say good-bye to our good friends Nesterov
and Kirilov, and to Nick, who has so faithfully watched over us
and our contacts. As we wait for our pilot, we notice, carefully
stacked by the runway, great blocks of a yellow-green substance
and are told that this is raw sulphur, brought in by plane from a
distant mine.

Sulphur is cheap for its weight and bulk. Under the cost system
of the Western world, no one would dream of wasting valuable
air-cargo space on it, even in wartime. Here, where they seem to
invent their bookkeeping as they go along, block sulphur sometimes
moves by plane, while war-wounded sometimes move by horsecart.

We climb into the Douglas, for our flight back to capitalism.
The pilot spirals up over Ashkhabad, getting altitude for the moun-
tain pass. Looking down we see the old native quarter clustered
around its mosque and beyond, the wide streets and parks (full of
striding Stalins) of the new Soviet town. Glittering below is the
cool green water of an enormous new public swimming pool. Still
more significant is its placement; not in the Slav Town with the
other new buildings, but on the edge of the native city, so that
the Turkoman people enjoy it too. It glitters up at us like a square-
cut emerald, in its snow-white concrete setting, as vivid as the
sulphur blocks we still see stacked at the airport. Somehow between
them they told the story of the Soviets.

The mountains were unbelievably beautiful for rain falls only on
their northern slopes, so this side of every foothill and knoll was
Kelly green against the desert yellow of the mass. Once over the
ridge, there was only tawny desolation, dropping off into flat
desert until we sighted the winding green river valley of Teheran.

Within our cabin we witnessed a miracle : the Resurrection of
Joyce. Behind us were the perplexities of the Soviet Union, which
included both bedbugs and the NKVD. Ahead are the fleshpots
of capitalism. Outstanding among which for Joyce is the American
air base at Teheran where he can revel in boiled black coffee and
boiled white sheets.

Even as we watch, his bubonic plague of yesterday fades like a
dream, the roses are back in his cheeks, and the twinUe in his blue
eye. He is wondering if maybe the American general in Teheran
might not have a shot of Bourbon *‘To take away the taste of
that damn vodka. And why wouldn’t he have it ? He’s an Irishman
isn’t he? — and with two stars. What the hell good are they if he
can’t get Bourbon? You speak to him, Eric.”

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 247

But we were not quite through with the Soviets. At the airport
they told us that the Russian Ambassador, having been informed
we were on our way out, was tendering us a final £nner.

We spent the afternoon using ourselves as laboratory guinea
pigs. We had just come from six rugged weeks of socialism, diluted
only by Soviet champagne. What were the things which would
strike us most vividly on our return to capitalism? We decided to
take notes even as the Douglas was fighting the air currents in the
pass.

First of all were the shops. As we had passed through Teheran
en route to Moscow and fresh from America, Persia had struck
us as one of the world’s slum areas, as in point of fact, it is. Today
our eyes feasted on the wonderful little shop windows, piled high
with fruit — pink meat hanging from butchers’ pegs — windows of
screw drivers and saws or new clothing. This disreputable Hoover-
ville of the capitalist world was, by contrast with the empty shops
of the Soviet Union, a Dickens description of Christmas plenty.
Had there been fine public buildings Just over the mountains?
There were finer ones here.

Now for the people; here in what we had called shabby Persia,
a majority of the ones we saw on the sidewalks were much better
dressed. About one-fifth approached the low Soviet average and
about one in ten were in picturesque Oriental rags and tatters —
worse than anything we had seen over the border. For Soviet rags
are never quite that — they are always clean and neatly mended.

Another thing which slapped us in the face was that Soviet street
crowds were always hurrying to get somewhere — unless they were
standing in a queue. These people were taking their time. A few
of them — both rich and poor, seemed to be frankly loafing and
enjoying it. They had some time to kill !

Over the border life is one long frantic rush to get things done
in order to stay alive, with the Communist Party feverishly prodding
you on. Yet there had been no beggars, there had been no sly
Oriental trickery — there had been a robust self-respect which we
liked — and sometimes missed here.

Our final Soviet dinner was in the Soviet Embassy dacha a few
kilometres out of Teheran. It was spacious like the other dachas
in which we had been entertained. Our hosts we remembered as
having met us at Teheran airport when we were entering Russia.
Only where were their boiled Sears, Roebuck suits ? These had not
altered but our viewpoint had; a[fter Moscow they now seemed
smartly dressed.

The Soviet Ambassador was an earnestly courteous man in his
late thirties with short cropped black hair — he could have been

248 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

mayor of any Siberian town. But the dinner was European — gone
was the great spread of fish and sausage — the lavish Oriental style.
Instead there was a polished table, by contrast bare with a Spartan
simplicity, at which we partook of an ordinary European meal.
Soup to fish to entree to salad to dessert to coffee, with brandy at
the end for toasts.

Here Eric made easily the best speech of our trip. He thanked
them for their great hospitality. He told them they had not only
given us their best, but that they had in every way fulfilled their
promise that he might go where he liked and see what he wished.
Some of the towns we had visited, he said, had not been open for
foreigners since 1926. And if he had a regret, it was only that in
the past there had been so much suspicion of foreigners that out-
siders had seen little of Russia.

However, on our trip, he said, not only had he been taken every-
where, but had been allowed to take American correspondents with
him, so that they could write something of the strong new world
that was being built over the mountains and behind the Urals. And
he hoped that in the future Americans could travel just as freely
in Russia as Russians may travel in America.

Then the Russian Ambassador got up. He was not pleased.

He said there were good reasons why Russia in the past had been
suspicious of foreigners. Even today, he said, there were reasons.
There was, for instance, in Switzerland the Bank of International
Settlements. An American was a member of its board, and also a
German. All during the war this bank had continued to do business.
Therefore, he said, the Soviet Union had good reason to be careful
of foreigners.

During the last part of this speech Joyce was sitting on the edge
of his chair, an Irish terrier straining at the leash, thirsty for blood.
When the Soviet Ambassador sat down, Joyce was on his feet. For
weeks we had been smothered both by hospitality and the ever-
present attentions of the NKVD; now was his golden moment.

Fixing our host with a glittering eye, he said: “ Mr. Ambassador,
sometimes we have our suspicions, too. When Mr. White, here, was
in Moscow, he stayed at the Hotel Metropole. His room was on the
second floor. On the third floor,” here Joyce paused, smiled, then
continued gently, “were the Japanese.” And at this point every
American at the table roared with laughter. “Nevertheless, you
Russians are welcome in America. You can travel, there, without
permits, anywhere you like. You can send to Russia any rep>ort8
about us you like, for publication in your newspapers, without any
fear of American political censorship.

“I hope this will continue, Mr. .Ambassador. We do not distrust

REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS 249

Russia. I see no reason why in America we should. So my toast is
to the trust between Russia and America.”

Everybody drank, the Americans smiling broadly. Then the
ambassador hastily said that we would now proceed to discuss
economic matters because Mr. Johnston had been invited to Russia
as a businessman. So we should confine our talk to matters of future
trade and commerce between our two respective great nations. So
we did. Presently it was time to go home. We said good-bye and
went.

This ends my report on the Russians and here are my conclusions.
I should add that these, as well as the general viewpoint of this book,
are entirely my own, and not to be charged against my good friend
Eric Johnston.

Any close relations with the Soviet Union are fraught with con-
siderable danger to us until American reporters get the same freedom
to travel about Russia, talk to the people unmolested by spies,
and report to their homeland with that same freedom from political
censorship that Soviet representatives enjoy here, and that American
reporters enjoy in England and other free countries. This must also
apply to European or Asiatic territory occupied by or affiliated with
the Soviet Union. Correspondents abroad arc the ears and eyes of
our Democracy. If we are to help build up Russia, our people are
entitled to complete reports from press representatives of their own
choosing on what we are helping to build.

We should remember that Russia is entitled to a Europe which
is not hostile to her. Wc should also remember that while American
aid in building back her destroyed industries is highly desirable to
Russia, it is not indispensable. She will not swap it for what she
considers ber security in the new world.

She is, however, in a mood to accept decent compromises. But if,
as our armies are in Europe while this settlement is being worked
out, we find we can’t get everything we want, we would be childishly
stupid to get mad, pick up our toys and go home.

If we decide it is wise to do business with the Russians, we can
trust them to keep their end of any financial bargain. They are a
proud people, and can be counted on to pay on the nose before the
tenth of the month.

But any business deals should depend on their aims in Europe and
Asia. We should extend no credit to Russia until it becomes much
clearer than it now is that her ultimate intentions are peaceable.

I think these intentions will turn out to be friendly. However, if
we move our armies out of Europe before the continent is stabilized,
and if disorder, bloodshed, and riots then ensue, the Russians will

250 REPORT ON THE RUSSIANS

move into any such political vacuum. After all, they are not stupid.
Russia for the present needs no more territory, but badly needs
several decades of peace. She is, however, still plagued with sus-
picions of the capitalist world, and needs to be dealt with on a basis of
delicately balanced firmness and fiiendliness. To date, the Roosevelt
Administration has done an excellent job of this, in an unbelievably
difficult situation.

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